


The Soft Place

by AlternateAims43



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 13:17:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 23,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlternateAims43/pseuds/AlternateAims43
Summary: A reincarnation AU. Strange dreams have begun to plague the members of the 104th. Many are strangers, but as fate leads them to meet, and the dreams continue, they come to the conclusion that they have known each other in another life, maybe even more than one. Slowly, they begin piecing together what happened to them, what it might all mean, and how it affects their futures. They realize their current universe is a kind one, maybe even the kindest. A safe haven. A soft place.





	1. The First Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is a Jearmin fic, so that’s obviously going to be a feature. All of the other pairings were decided not necessarily by what I think is good or bad. They fell into place as I wrote about a universe in which trauma has never touched the characters. I can’t explain what drove me to write this at all, so please do not read too deeply into my decisions, I made pretty much all of it up as I went along. None of the side pairings feature too heavily. Thanks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also! I wrote this in honor of Jearmin week, even though it has... nothing to do with any of the prompts. Thanks to the organizers and everyone who's made content these last few days!

_Jean_

I woke up drenched in sweat, halfway through a strangled gasp. I had never had a dream like this one, but now that I was awake, I couldn’t seem to remember the details. Still breathing heavily, I threw off my tangled sheets and made my way to the bathroom. I took gulps of ice cold water straight from the sink, rubbing some in my face to try and wash off the thick layer of sweat I was still covered in. As I calmed down and headed back to my room, the door to my parents’ room inched open.

“Jean?”

“Yeah, I’m ok dad. Go back to bed.”

“What happened?”

“Bad dream. I needed a drink. I’m fine.”

Back in my bed, I twisted around, unable to avoid lying in the cold spot where my sweat had soaked through the sheets. _It was just a bad dream_, I repeated to myself. But it had felt like more. The details were gone, but I had no trouble remembering the feeling that had driven me awake. A harsh, exaggerated terror, the certainty that death had come, and that it was going to hurt. Panic, as I ran, or maybe flew away from whatever it was that scared me so badly. I squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to think about something else. Just before I fell back asleep, I remembered one last hazy detail.

Someone was holding me.

It was all over.

We were both going to die.

_Armin_

When I woke up, I was crying. Soft morning light streamed through the window as I put a hand to my face and felt tears there, fresh, still running down my face. I sat up and examined my pillow. Tears had clearly fallen there too, leaving two distinct damp patches. What had I been dreaming about? I tried to remember, but all I could conjure up was an image of a bright, cool day. There was nothing very sad about nice weather, but all of a sudden I felt it again, briefly, a terrible ache in my chest. It was beyond sadness. It was grief.

Unnerved, I stood up, and went about getting dressed for school. I picked out a big sweater, and the underwear with all the smileys on them, seeking comfort. I put on my old, most comfortable converse, no longer trying to remember the dream, now wishing I could forget the way it had made me feel. I had almost managed it by the time I made it downstairs, and was further comforted by the familiar smell of oatmeal cooking, not in the microwave, but in a pot on the stove, with real milk and brown sugar. I sat down at the table, where a steaming bowl was immediately placed in front of me. I smiled.

“Thanks mom.” 


	2. I Know Him

_Armin_

Dad had already left for work, so mom and I ate breakfast alone together. It was still early, and there was plenty of time before I had to leave for school. I liked slow mornings, especially when mom was home, and could make me breakfast. Soon she would be on assignment again, shooting for National Geographic. There was a stack of old magazines with her work in them piled on almost every surface in the house.

“I have to go,” I said, glancing at my watch. Half past eight.

“Go get him. I’ll finish up the dishes.”

I stood at the Jaeger’s door, wondering if I should ring the bell again. Both of his parents left very early for work, so it was possible he was still asleep. Sighing, I rang the doorbell, then knocked a few times for good measure. The Jaeger’s had moved across the street right at the start of Junior year, when Dr. Jaeger was transferred to the city hospital. There had never been many kids in this neighborhood, so I was glad that Eren and I got along. He was loud and excitable, if not a little headstrong, and drove me to school most days, provided I made sure he was awake and dressed on time.

“Eren!” I shouted, knocking again. The door swung open.

“I’m ready! Almost!” said Eren, sending something gelatinous flying through the air. There was a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. “One second, lemme spit.”

As Eren retreated into the house, leaving the door open as an invitation to follow, something very strange happened. I recognized him. Obviously I recognized him. We’d seen each other almost every day for the past year, so I definitely knew what he looked like. But this wasn’t that. I felt like I had known him for longer, felt suddenly, an inexplicable urge to reach out and touch him, hug him, hold him close.

“Eren!” I said. He turned to look at me, toothbrush still clamped between his teeth, and the feeling faded.

“What?”

I managed to cover for myself.

“Hurry up! We’ve got an Astronomy test first period!” 

I watched Eren carefully as he drove down the familiar road the school, still damp from the storm the night before. There was something different about him. Did he look older? More serious?

“I’m just saying, we’re seniors. We can afford to blow one Astronomy test. It’s basically second semester.”

“Yeah but it’s not. The work still counts. What would your girlfriend say?”

Eren snorted.

“Please. Mikasa has the work ethic of ten mules. She’ll still be cramming for finals after she’s been accepted to college, trust me.”

Eren and Mikasa had met on the first day of Junior year. I had actually watched it happen. They were paired together for some stupid getting to know you game, an activity that in general, had almost zero chance of making you any new friends. So it was a sign, a miracle even, when Mikasa ended up sitting with us at lunch. I had never really spoken to her. Serious and beautiful, Mikasa Ackerman was a force many were too scared to reckon with. I had always assumed she was popular, but when she kept eating lunch with us, I realized how lonely being the best at almost everything could make you. A lot of people asked me, many with poorly disguised envy, why she had chosen the new kid, as if it was unfair. I told them a little bit of the truth, that Eren wasn’t scared of her, and spoke to her like any other person. The real truth was that they had started talking and never stopped. For whatever reason, being together came naturally to them.

We pulled into the school parking lot, exiting the car and joining the hundreds of students streaming into school. Trost Municipal was huge, well over a thousand students per class, and I often feared I’d be trampled one day, even with Eren elbowing people out of our way left and right. The Astronomy test turned out to be more of a quiz, ten questions I breezed through before fishing a spare book out of my bag. My dad owned an independent bookstore, so along with National Geographics, our house was flooded with paperbacks, hardbacks, and boxes of overstock. There was pretty much always one within arm’s reach. I kept a small stash of favorites in my bag at all times, for opportunities such as this one.

Lunch found Mikasa at our corner table, like always, talking about college applications while Eren shoveled fries into his mouth at light speed.

“You’re going to choke,” she said casually. Eren shrugged, but slowed down, stealing a sip of her soda. “By the way, my friend Ymir has a poetry reading tonight. She hardly ever reads her stuff out loud, so I think it would be nice if lots of people came.”

I remembered Ymir. She was a lot like Mikasa, a little intimidating, very pretty, but also sharp enough there was a risk of cutting yourself.

“What time is it?”

“Seven thirty. Should only last an hour or two.”

“Sure,” said Eren, with another shrug. A poetry reading might not have been his idea of a great night, but he rarely objected when it came to Mikasa, and it would give him an excuse not to do any homework we were assigned for tomorrow.

“I don’t know. Is it at a coffee shop?” I said.

“They’ll have tea too.”

“I know! I kind of wanted a quiet night in.”

“It’s a poetry reading. You can’t get quieter. They don’t even let you clap,” she said, snapping her fingers at me.

“Maybe! Maybe.”

I really didn’t want to go. I was curled up in bed with a book, trying to ignore the honking clearly coming from the driveway. Eren leaned on the horn, stopped, then started again, one long unceasing blare. I could almost hear the two of them in the car.

_“Eren! Cut it out!”_

_“It’s the only way he’ll come. You have to annoy him out sometimes.” _

“Okay!” I shouted, alone in my room, putting the book aside and heading for the door. It wasn’t like I really hadn’t expected to go. I was already dressed.

I watched Eren again, this time from the back seat, as he drove Mikasa and I to the coffee shop where Ymir would be reading her poetry. Again, he looked exactly the same as always, and again, I was sure there was something different about him. Something had changed. My eyes moved briefly to Mikasa, who I was surprised to see was also staring rather intently at Eren. Could she see it too? Should I ask? I kept my mouth shut for the time being, as we arrived at the coffee shop.

It was starting to cool down outside, so the warm, sweet smelling air inside the shop was especially welcome. Autumn was my favorite time of year, and I was pleased to see this place already had decorative gourds up. There were a fair few people already here, seated in big comfy looking armchairs, or standing around the bar. I spotted Ymir looking almost nervous, pacing near a little stage next to an small blonde girl. As we stood in the entrance, a few more people tried to make their way inside, and we moved to the counter.

Mikasa went to say hi to Ymir, while Eren paid for our drinks. Two lattes, and a large herbal tea for me. My love of caffeine was not strong enough to outweigh my distaste for coffee, bitter tasting no matter how much sweetener Eren added. We collected our order, and made our way to the back to find a seat. Mikasa rushed over to steer us towards a group of people clearly also here to see Ymir. Among them were two exceptionally tall boys, one with very cute freckles, and a fourth, blond and sharp faced, sitting right across from me.

“This is Reiner and Bert,” said Ymir, gesturing to the tall boys, one built like a tank, the other lanky and nervous looking. “This is Marco,” freckles smiled and waved, “and that’s Jean.”

I locked eyes with the blond boy, who frowned. He leaned forward in his seat, as if to get a better look at me.

“I know you,” he said.

My heart leapt into my throat. _He knew me_. Only he didn’t. I had never met this boy, with piercing amber eyes and an arguing mouth that reminded me a little of Eren’s.

“I don’t think so,” I said. _I would remember you_, I refrained from adding.

His eyebrows, which had shot up during his assertion of familiarity, pinched together.

“You sure?” There was no attempt to disguise his confusion. His hard thinking was all over his face, and I waited patiently.

“He looks kind of like Historia doesn't he?” He glanced over at the girl Ymir was with, the little blonde one.

“I guess,” said Reiner, “they’re both blond.”

I didn’t love being compared to some random girl, not missing the fact that any of the guys here could probably bench press her, but decided there was too much unfortunate truth in the statement to argue.

“That must be it,” said Jean with a shrug, still frowning.

The lights flashed, and Ymir was dragged by her sleeve to the stage, where Historia pushed a little notebook at her.

“Longtime girlfriends,” whispered Mikasa, which made sense. Historia was giving Ymir what looked like the pep talk of the century, the kind of fiery expression on her face people only got when they really loved someone.

I tried to listen to Ymir’s poetry, I really did. I was distracted however, both by Eren, who I could not seem to stop staring at, and by the blond boy, Jean, who could not seem to stop staring at me. He averted his eyes quickly every time I met them, but clearly wasn’t too embarrassed, or he would give it a rest. _He knows you_, a small voice inside my head whispered. _We’ve never met_, I whispered back. A small wave of what might have been the sadness from that morning washed over me as I wracked my memory, and came to the same conclusion over and over again.

We’ve never met.

We’ve never met.


	3. We've Met

_Jean_

I knew I knew that little blond kid. Armin. Whatever. I _knew_ it. I couldn’t help but steal glances at him as Ymir read her poetry. When she finished, there was a break before the next act. Armin and I both got up to refill drinks.

“Are you sure we haven’t had a class together?”

“I’m sure,” he said.

“But you go to St. Maria’s right?”

“Trost Municipal, actually,” he said with a sad sort of smile.

“Fuck me.” If he went to Trost, we really hadn’t met. “Oh don’t, I’ll get it.”

He looked up from digging in his wallet as I passed the cashier a ten.

“Thanks.”

“It’s herbal tea. It’s like, two dollars. Don’t mention it.”

As we waited for our drinks to be made, I eyed the other people Ymir had brought. The dude, Eren, was nothing special, but the girl holding his hand was gorgeous, way out of his league, all long legs and shiny black hair. I liked girls, sometimes, under the right circumstances, and she was all the right circumstances. Still, it was clear that her and Eren were _together_ together, not just some fling.

Ymir and I knew each other through Historia, who had a bunch of classes with Reiner and Bert, who played football with Marco, who had been my best friend for just about forever. We didn’t hang out together a lot, but the guys were easy to talk to, and Ymir was a kindred spirit, in terms of being kind of an asshole. Armin handed me my drink.

“Thanks.”

The next act was up on stage. We were almost back to our seats, when I stepped in something slippery, probably whipped cream, and went flying backwards. Two glasses smashed on the floor as Armin dropped his tea, and caught me around the middle from behind. It would have been heroic, if I weren’t clearly too heavy for him. Both of us hit the ground hard ass first.

I was pulled to my feet. Someone was asking if I had landed on any glass, but I couldn’t respond. The fall had jogged something in my memory. I pointed at Armin.

“THE FIELD.”

I said it so loudly, the woman who asked if I was hurt took a step back.

“The what?” said Armin, looking confused.

“The field! You! You…” I trailed off. What was I talking about? What field? Marco appeared at my shoulder.

“Jean? Are you concussed?”

“No I’m fine, I just, thought I remembered.”

Everyone was still looking at me like I’d grown an extra head.

“I’m fine!” I called to the crowd at large, as a girl appeared to sweep up the broken glass. The murmurs that had filled the shop quieted, and eventually, the next act began. _The field_. What field? I’d said it with such conviction, but now I couldn’t remember why.

The six of us were packed into Ymir’s car. Historia was always shotgun, which left Reiner, Marco and I to wedge ourselves into the backseat. Bert was so big he had to kind of crouch in the trunk area, which was definitely illegal.

“How you doin back there?” said Reiner.

“M’okay,” said Bert, giving us the thumbs up.

Reiner had a car, but it was in the shop, and Ymir had offered to drive all of us, which she was now definitely regretting.

“I think it went great,” said Historia, a hand on Ymir’s tense shoulder.

“It went ok. I screwed up a really good line, in that second to last poem?”

Historia nodded.

“To Love is not Monstrous. Is that one about me?”

“They’re all about you. I guess it did go well. At least everyone was paying attention.” She took her eyes off the road to glare at me.

“What? I paid attention!” I said, stung. “Fuckin...Jupiter resplendent on the day of my birth. Word for word. Suck it.”

“Fair enough.” She turned back to the road seemingly unphased, but I knew she was pleased. Historia shot me a smile. “What did you think of the Trost kids, by the way?”

“Mikasa was hot,” said Reiner.

“I thought everyone was hot,” said Historia.

“Jean clearly thought Armin was hot. Or possibly was having a stroke. I feel like you showed signs of both tonight.”

The whole car shook a little as everyone laughed.

“You don’t understand,” I groaned, “I know him!”

“What’s his favorite color then?”

“Not like that. I recognize him.”

“You already said, he looks like Historia,” said Reiner.

“We’re both very pretty,” said Historia.

I didn’t expect them to get it. None of it made sense to me either.

“Whatever. It’s a goddamned mystery.”

“Maybe you met in a dream,” said Bert from the trunk.

I turned my head slowly to look at him.

“Say that again.”

“That you met in a dream? I was joking. I’m in a romantic mood, after all the poetry.”

“No but, that’s exactly what it feels like.”

There were several second of silence, before the whole car burst into laughter again.

“_You_ should write poetry, Jean,” said Historia, still giggling.

That night, I went to bed early, my ass sore, my pride wounded. _Maybe you met in a dream_ I heard Bert say. “We’ve met,” I mumbled into my pillow. I said it once more, almost like a prayer: “We’ve met.” A childish part of me hoped I would dream the answer. I didn’t. Instead, I dreamed I held Marco’s limp body in my arms. Half of it was missing. The air was thick with the smell of blood and shit.

I woke up once more in a cold sweat.


	4. You Too?

_Armin_

“I had a weird dream last night.”

Eren and I were in the car on the way to school.

“Yeah, mine was weird too.”

“How weird?”

Eren smiled, scrunching up his eyebrows.

“I dreamed someone shot Sasha.”

This caught me so off guard, I laughed out loud.

“Sasha? From Calculus? What, like with a gun?” Sasha was a strange but weirdly popular girl who sat in the back of our Calculus class, constantly cracking jokes, or getting in trouble for eating.

“Maybe, I can’t really remember. No, actually, I don’t think it was a gun. I don’t think it killed her either, but we were all really worried. Well, me and this other guy. You might have been there. Maybe Mikasa. It was wild.” Eren sighed and put both hands back on the steering wheel. “Been having a lot of weird dreams lately.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah.”

Something was wrong. Eren wasn’t good at hiding his emotions, and I could see pain in the downturned corners of his mouth, the edge of his brow.

“Bad dreams.”

Eren nodded.

“I had a really terrible one the other night. I mean, really, it fucked me up. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.”

“What happened.”

Eren hesitated.

“I dreamed I hurt Mikasa.”

“Like, you hit her?” I asked, not expecting this and vaguely off put.

“Yeah, but so hard. It didn’t make any sense. I didn’t want to hit her, but I did, I did it _so_ hard, like I really meant it. And she flew. Maybe I hit her so hard she flew into the air, or maybe she could already fly in the dream, but…” he trailed off, “please don’t tell anyone. I would never hurt her, never. I woke up really scared.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” I said. A heavy silence filled the car, broken only as we pulled into the parking lot.

“What did you dream about, anyway?” said Eren.

“Oh,” I didn’t really want to tell him now. The conversation so far had already been so morbid. “I dreamed I burnt to death. Twice.”

_Jean_

“And I was in half? What, totally in half? Clean cut?”

“Pretty clean, yeah. Right down the middle.”

Marco and I were sitting in first period Advanced Chem. We were supposed to be performing a titration, but only Marco was paying attention.

“Gross.”

“It was so real. I could smell your organs. Or, wait, maybe they were missing. Whatever. The point is, it was disgusting.”

“I had a weird dream last night too,” said Marco.

“Oh yeah?”

“I dreamed you worked in an ice cream shop, and you fucking hated it.”

I burst into laughter, which startled Marco, which ruined the titration.

_Armin_

“Sasha,” said Eren as we took our seats in Calculus, “I had dream about you last night.”

“Mm?”

“You took a shot to the chest in a fight.”

I stopped unpacking my bag to glance at Eren. That wasn’t how he had phrased it in the car.

“That’s so weird,” said Sasha, eyes wide, looking serious for once, “I dreamed I got shot last night too.”

“Really?” I said, still frozen in the act of unpacking. Eren too looked unnerved for a moment, before Sasha broke into laughter.

“Not really, weirdos. I dreamed I killed a boar. It was sick.”

Eren and I were headed to lunch after Calculus.

“Do you think Sasha usually dreams about, like, hunting boars?”

“Probably.”

“It’s weird that so many people remember their dreams. I barely ever remember mine.”

“You remembered the one from last night, about dying in a fire. Twice.”

I hummed in vague agreement.

“I don’t really remember it though. I just remember, the feeling. Heat, and pain, and more heat, different from the first time. I don’t think I was ever on fire.”

“Everyone has weird dreams,” said Eren, as Mikasa appeared at his side.

“I had a weird dream last night.”

“You too?” I said, slightly unnerved. Slightly.

“Yes. I dreamed my cousin and I were staying in a log cabin.”

“That’s not weird,” said Eren, ruffling her long hair.

“It was weird! It wasn’t a nice cabin. It was deserted and creepy.”

“Was I there?”

“No.”

“What about Armin?”

Mikasa thought for a moment before looking at me.

“Yes. Maybe. I think you were hurt. I was worried about you.”

“Thanks,” I said softly.

“Sounds like a romantic getaway,” said Eren. Mikasa gave him a withering look.

“Levi is my _cousin_, Eren. And he’s happily married."


	5. What Was Missing

_Armin_

Something was wrong. Eren and Mikasa would say I was paranoid, and anyone else would say I was crazy, but I could tell. Nevertheless, I’m wasn’t sure what I hoped to accomplish with the very low effort experiment I was about to perform.

It was eleven pm on a Wednesday, and I was in the bathroom, rooting around in the medicine cabinet. Spotting the little white bottle, I checked the expiration date. Only a few months out, so they should work just fine. Returning to my room, I assessed my gathered materials.

The sleeping pills would knock me out hard, hopefully hard enough to make sure I had a serious dream, or any dream at all. I had always been a light sleeper. Then, when I woke up, I could reach immediately for the pen and notebook on my bedside table, and make notes. I knew full well it would probably turn out stupid. That I’d wake up and write out a grocery list or something about forgetting my pants. Still, I wanted to remember, even if it did turn out to be about pants. I’d feel better if I dreamed about pants. I placed the notebook and pen carefully on the edge of the bedside table, and knocked back two of the pills. Swallowing hard and coughing a little, I got under the covers and closed my eyes.

I was in an empty room. It was full of unmade bunk beds, otherwise sparse, no posters or other decorations on the walls. It smelled like boy. As I sat on one of the unmade bottom bunks, my heart pounded, louder and louder until it was all I could hear. Something was coming. Or maybe, it had already come. I was filled with raw, unplaceable emotion, almost overwhelming, until I was distracted by a presence beside me. I looked around, but no one was there. Still, I reached out and touched the air next to me, sure I had felt something move.

“Hello?” I whispered.

I was sitting in a river. The water rushed by me, but I was stuck to the bottom, unable and unwilling to move. I could smell soap. Again, I was completely alone. Yet someone was murmuring, just out of sight. I heard them as if I was under the water instead of sitting in it, slow and distorted.

“Hello?” I called out. But no one answered. I was suddenly nervous. It was too peaceful here.

I was leaning against a tree, looking out at an tree dotted field. The grass swayed gently in the breeze, as hazy white clouds moved swiftly by. I was alone. I was paralyzed with fear. It surrounded me like an animal, so that I pushed up closer to the tree, away from it. I needed to get up, to run as fast as I could, even if it wouldn’t make a difference. But something kept me here. Something heavy. Something I could not leave without. I looked down at my empty hands, and fear overwhelmed me.

I sat straight up in bed with a deep intake of breath, momentarily blinded by the light streaming through my blinds. Quick to recover, I clutched my head, thinking hard. An empty room. A river. A tree in a field. I remembered all of it, as clearly as if I’d really been there. None of what I had dreamed had been very ominous. I should be reassured, so why did I still feel like something had gone wrong? What was missing? Slightly disappointed but resolving to get over it, I got out of bed, stepping over the would be dream journal where it lay on the floor. I hadn’t even needed it.

“Any more weird dreams?” I asked Eren on our way into school.

“Nope!” he said, cheerful. “I slept great. I feel great. I think I’ll take Mikasa to Applegate after school. You want to come?”

Applegate Farm was an ice cream parlour, painted red and white, that reminded us all of being little, even if we hadn’t grown up in town. So, Eren slept great and I dreamed about scenery. Maybe there was nothing to my suspicions after all.

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

“Sick. You can’t get butter pecan though, that’s an old man flavor.”

“It’s the best one!”

Mikasa also seemed in good spirits when we finally saw her at lunch. She happily agreed to join us for Applegate.

“Oh, yes! Before it gets too cold. I haven’t been in ages.”

She stole two of my fries, and three of Eren’s, who reached over and took a bite out of her chicken sandwich in return.

“Ymir says thanks for coming the other night by the way. It meant a lot to her.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

“Historia says thanks too apparently. And Marco, and blah blah everyone else too. What did you think of the St. Maria’s kids?”

“Cute couple,” said Eren. “Ymir and Historia. Were the rest of them like, together?”

“I don’t think so. Pretty sure you’d have been able to tell.”

Eren shrugged.

“Dudes can be super aloof. If there’s two of them together, that’s like, double the aloof.”

“That, _so barely_ made sense. But I’ll let it pass. I know what you mean.”

“That reminds me,” said Eren, “you didn’t find any glass in your ass later that night, did you Armin?”

“What?”

“When that guy fell and nearly killed you both.”

Nearly killed us both was going a bit far.

“No, I got lucky.” Actually, I had barely noticed all the glass on the floor after we’d fallen. I’d been by distracted. Distracted by…

_“THE FIELD.”_

I put my fork down, a strange feeling coming over me. Eren and Mikasa had switched topics. Now I really was being paranoid. Just because Jean had mentioned a field, albeit in the most startling and unnerving way possible, didn’t mean it had anything to do with my dreams. In fact, I had probably dreamed about the field because he had shouted it at me.

I spent English class trying to remember as much of the dream as possible, just for fun, I told myself. Fun, and the fact that Robinson Crusoe was the world’s most boring novel to read, let alone discuss in detail. I saw the field I’d been sitting in clearly, weirdly clearly. I went deeper, remembering the fear that had struck me out of nowhere, the invisible weight that was keeping me there. Looking once more at my hands, now clutching Robinson Crusoe, I gave up. Maybe there _was_ something I had forgotten. If so, it was lost forever. I should have used the dream journal. I saw it in my mind’s eye, lying on the floor. Lying on the floor, near the foot of the bed, when I knew I’d left it on my bedside table.

“Armin? Where are you going? It’s Applegate time.”

I walked straight past Eren fumbling with the keys to his car.

“I’ll come next time. I’ve got to get home.”

“Is everything ok?”

“Everything’s fine, you have fun. Try Butter Pecan, its wildly underrated.”

I tried to rush off, waving a hurried goodbye.

“Armin! Idiot, I drove you here. At least let me drop you back.”

Mikasa kept shooting glances at me in the rearview mirror, while I tried to calm down. Even if there was something in the journal, it probably didn’t mean anything. It would be easier if it didn’t mean anything, or even better, if it were blank. To their credit, neither of my two friends pushed it further, or asked why I needed to go home so suddenly. They would probably talk about it after I was gone. Eren was driving maddeningly slow. I couldn’t seem to contain my nerves, my racing heart. My hands shook a little as I wiped my upper lip. What was this? Anticipation? Fear? Excitement?

I barely said goodbye as we pulled into my driveway, flinging the door open with a hurried ‘thanks’. Through my front door, past my mom on a phone call, into my normally tidy room, the book on the floor the only thing out of place. I picked it up, sat down, and stood up again. I turned it over, and heart hammering, flipped through it. For one relieving and terrifying moment, I thought it really was blank. Then my eyes caught a tiny flash of black ink, and I almost tore pages trying to find it again. I had written in the journal last night, and forgotten it by the next morning. I had written his name. _Jean_. 

*

The phone rang and rang. _Come on, pick up._

“Armin!” said Mikasa, “Are you going to tell us why you bailed so dramatically on ice cream today? It was closed, by the way, but we saw a chipmunk, so not a total loss.”

“It was nothing, I just didn’t feel so well. I thought I might be sick,” I lied.

“Oh. Fair enough. Do you feel better?”

“Yeah, all better. Mikasa? Do you think you could talk to Ymir for me? I…” I trailed off, reluctant. No, I had to do this. “You remember that guy from the other night? Jean? I want his number.”


	6. Loud, So Loud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always felt Jean and Ymir should be better friends! So I wrote it!

_Armin_

“You gave my number to Ymir? Why would you do that?”

“I gave it to Ymir so she could give it to Jean. That’s what you wanted right?”

I shook my head.

“No! I need Jean’s number. _I_ need to call _him_.”

“Why?”

“So he doesn’t have the option of not calling me!”

Mikasa raised her eyebrows. She looked mildly impressed.

“You’re really interested in this guy aren’t you?”

I pursed my lips.

“In a manner of speaking.”

_Jean_

Ymir was staring at me. She looked especially smug, which was worrying. We were sitting in the bleachers, failing to do homework, waiting for Marco Bert and Reiner to get out of practice.

“What?”

“I have something for you.”

I stared at her, bewildered. There were so many things, and at the same time absolutely nothing it could be. Some advice? A fart? An asskicking?

“Mikasa called me the other day, about you.”

Now I was really confused.

“I thought she was with that other guy.”

“Oh she is. Apparently, Armin wants to give you his number.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

“I told him he looked like a girl. I shouted nonsense at him. I took him down in public, literally, with my body.”

“You bought him a tea though, right? I guess he thought that was chivalrous.” 

“Consider yourself lucky Jean, jesus,” said Historia, “and Mikasa is way out of your league, by the way.”

“Out of _my_ league?”

We argued for a few minutes before Ymir got bored.

“Enough, enough. So do you want it or not?”

“What?”

“Armin’s number, do you want it?”

There was a lot going on in my head, so it took me a while to answer. It scared me a little how strange I’d acted the other night. I couldn’t quite place how I’d felt about him, even now, days later. Whatever it was, it made me a little queasy. Still, he had tried to save me when I fell, which I liked more than I cared to admit. And he was very cute.

“Of course I want it,” I said, digging out my phone and handing it to her.

“Oh my god, you’re blushing. You like him.”

“I am not. And it’s just a number.”

“You had better call him,” said Historia threateningly.

“I will I will!”

I waited twenty four hours. Not that I was trying to be cool about it. My hesitation was all nerves, which made no sense. _He clearly likes you, if he still wants you to call after how weird you were that night_, I thought to myself. And at the same time, I wasn’t sure that was what this was really about. Pacing back and forth across my room, I finally pressed call. Armin answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Jean. I’m glad you called.”

He said it a little too businesslike, as if I were calling about an interview.

“Really? I thought I’d be on your blacklist after the other night. Sorry I fell on you.”

“Sorry I dropped you.”

“Good reflexes though.”

“I didn’t even think about it, honestly.”

Whether he intended to be smooth with this line was unclear. In any case, I was pleased.

“Do you want to get coffee with me? I mean, tea for you obviously.”

“Yes! That sounds perfect.”

I reeled a little in my success. I had a date. I had a _date_.

“What about next Friday, same place we met?”

“Next Friday?” said Armin, “That’s so far away.”

I almost dropped the phone, now completely flustered. Not only did he want to see me, he wanted to see me as soon as possible.

“Ok, uh, what about Tuesday after school? At four?”

Instead of a reply, I heard muffled footsteps, some heavy scrapping, and a loud hiss.

“What’s that noise?” I said.

“Oh sorry, I’m cooking. Am I too loud?”

“No you’re…” I started, losing the rest of the sentence as it hit me. That was how I had felt about Armin when we were in the same room. It was a lot of different feelings, all mixed together, all screaming for my attention. What they were trying to tell me I had no idea. But it was loud, so loud.

“Fine. You’re fine. So Tuesday?”

“Tuesday. I’ll talk to you then!”

He hung up on me.

I fell asleep that night thinking about the coming Tuesday, so it wasn’t a surprise when I dreamed about Armin. Or at least, the person in the dream reminded me of Armin. This version of him had longer hair that fell prettily around his face. He was wearing strange, old fashioned clothes, and even stranger leather straps. There was something off about his face as well, like he was tired, and had been tired for a very long time. I dreamed we were at the beach. It was nighttime, the sky full of stars, and together we stripped down to our underwear before wading into the sea. The water was warm and relaxing. Armin was treading water, staring into the distance at a patch of water on which the moon was reflected.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. There were tears running down his face. I went to him, held him close in the water. This strange version of Armin sunk his head into my shoulder, and cried, and cried, and cried. 

When I woke up the next morning, I laid in bed for a long time, feeling stupid. It was just a dream. Why did I feel like crying too? 

_Armin_

Eren had already waited fifteen minutes while I changed in the bathroom, agreed to drive me to the coffee shop, and said he would take my backpack home for me, so when I asked if I could brush my teeth in the car he put his foot down.

“I’m sorry, are you going to arrange your own marriage? No? Relax then. This guy seems like a total goof anyway.”

“I want to look nice!”

“No comment on the goof thing?”

“I mean, he might be. I don’t really know him. I still want to look nice though.”

I hadn’t planned this. In fact, when I had called to ask him to meet me, I had definitely planned on making sure he knew it _wasn’t_ a date. But by the end of the phone call, I hadn’t said it. By Monday morning, I was glad I hadn’t. By Tuesday after school, I was asking Eren if I could brush my teeth in his vehicle. Jean was really nice looking, and kind enough to buy me a drink, and if my suspicions were at all correct, not as crazy as he had acted the other night. I had a date. I had a _date_.

“Have any weird dreams lately?” I asked, trying to change the topic.

“Why are you suddenly so interested in dreams?”

“You did have one then.”

“Well yeah, but it wasn’t scary. I was flying.”

“Those are the best dreams.”

Eren shrugged.

“I guess. It wasn’t scary, but it wasn’t exactly fun either. It was hard work. I was tired.”

“Did you have wings?”

“God, I don’t remember,” he sighed. “Look if you’re going to brush your teeth do it fast and spit out the window. Were almost there.”

Eren dropped me off just outside, and went to kill some time at a nearby library. Inside

the cafe I spotted Jean at once, stuffed into a corner table, his fingers drumming the sides of his coffee.

“Hi,” I said, dropping into the chair opposite. I noticed things about him I hadn’t before, in

the daylight. He had great bone structure, and a scar on his left earlobe.

“What’s that?” I said, pointing to it.

“Hi,” he said. “What, the scar?”

“Mhmm. Did it hurt?”

It was a weird opener, but I didn’t know where to begin anyway.

“Yeah. God, this is embarrassing. Marco pierced my ear with a sewing needle when we

were eleven. We thought it would look cool, but it got infected. There was blood and puss…” he trailed off. “Can I get you a drink? Coffee? No, tea right?”

“Thanks.”

He left and returned a few minutes later, with a big mug of tea, and a tiny pitcher of milk.

“How did you know to ask for this?”

I almost always drank milk in my tea, and I definitely always had to make a special

request. Jean shrugged.

“Call it instinct. Maybe I know you after all.”

_Maybe you do. _

He sat back down, and for a moment we just looked at each other. I felt like I had a million things to say, but no words would come.

“Do you...play sports?” said Jean.

I laughed. It was such a ridiculous question.

“No, do you?”

“God no. Marco plays football. I draw.”

“You draw? You’re built for sports though.”

“Thanks. Actually I played paintball once and I absolutely destroyed. Is paintball a sport?”

“I think so.”

It was like a dam had broken. The conversation was suddenly flowing almost too easily, topic after topic, story after story. And I was hungry for it. It was a strange feeling, like I had been empty inside for a hundred years, and talking to Jean had reminded me I was starving.

“So what do _you_ want to do after high school?” he asked.

“Me? I want to go into international politics.”

“Wow, that’s,” Jean blinked at me, “that’s really cool. I think you’d be good at that.”

I laughed.

“You only just met me! But I think so too. And I’d get to see the world. I travel with my

parents a lot, my mom works for National Geographic.”

“No way.”

I found myself talking fast without knowing why. It was almost frightening, this sudden pull deep inside me. Mikasa had been right, I really did like this guy. But where was it coming from? Was this what it felt like to fall in love?

I was so distracted by these thoughts that almost two hours had passed by the time I remembered about the dreams. The reason I was here, the reason I had called Jean in the first place.

“Hey,” I said, wrapping my hands around my now very cold tea. “Can I ask you a weird question?”

“Sure,” said Jean. He was leaning all the way forward in his chair, and seemed to realize this and straighten up as he spoke.

I steeled myself.

“Have you been having weird dreams lately?”

Jean’s eyes widened, and my heart skipped a beat.

“Yes, I mean well, yeah. I dreamed my best friend died the other day. A lot of nightmares. And I, uh. I dreamed about you, after you called. It wasn’t a nightmare though! Not really. Are you psychic or something?”

I tried to control my spiraling thoughts and feelings. This meant nothing, not really, no reason to look like a completely crazy person in front of Jean just yet.

“No. I think something might be going around though.”

If Jean thought this was a strange thing to say, he didn’t show it. I wondered if his dreams had been weirder than he was letting on, if he was also avoiding looking like a crazy person too soon.

A feeling was creeping up on me as we said an awkward goodbye a little while later.

“Can I see you again?” said Jean.

“Yes. What about next weekend? I’ll call you.”

“I’ve got a family thing, but I can probably get away at some point. Yeah, do.”

I didn’t tell him not to worry about it, that his family thing was more important. _This_ felt important. It was exciting, terrifying and nerve wracking all at once. I couldn’t quite give it a name, but it was loud. So loud.

*

I found Eren sitting in his car in the parking lot, hands folded and seat reclined. He looked up when I knocked on the window.

“It went okay then?”

“Yeah, it did. Sorry I was in there so long. Did you get any work done at the library?”

“I did zero work at the library.”

“Eren,” I scolded, “I told you, just because we’re seniors…”

But Eren was frowning again, not listening, and I trailed off.

“Do you remember what we were talking about before I dropped you off?” he said.

Of course I did. It was almost all I could think about at the moment.

“Your dream.”

Eren nodded, a hard to read expression on his face.

“You asked me if I had wings. _Wings_.” A little crease appeared between his eyebrows. “I think I had them. I think I had wings.”


	7. Not A Hallmark Movie

_Armin_

I made Eren drive to a Rite Aid. He seemed a little dazed and confused, and didn’t ask too many questions as I went inside to do my shopping.

I got back in the car with two sports drinks, a big bag of corn chips, and a cheap notepad and pen.

“Eren, I want you to do me a favor.”

His eyes were still kind of glazed over, and I threw the corn chips at him. This seemed to knock Eren out of his stupor. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at me.

“A favor? Was Rite Aid not like, already the favor? Or is this one big extended favor? I don’t mind, I’m just reminding you, you brushed your teeth in my car today.”

“I need one more thing, and you’re going to say it’s weird.”

He stared at me, waiting.

“I want you to start writing down your dreams, right after you wake up.” 

Eren gave me a very strange smile.

“You’re kind of freaking me out you know. What’s going on? I mean it. What’s happening?”

I thought I could see a real plea for information somewhere behind the smile, but there was still a chance the answer was ‘nothing’.

“I’m just really interested in dreams right now. I want to do an experiment.”

Somehow, it felt like a lot was riding on whether or not he agreed to help.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try.”

_Jean_

“So how’d you’re date go?”

Historia was at oboe practice, or marshal arts or something, and Ymir had invited me to walk to the gas station.

“You really want to know about my date?” I said.

“I’m border line interested and being polite. Are you going to tell me or not?”

“It went really well. Thanks.”

I was filling my slurpee cup halfway up with cherry slurpee. Ymir was doing half coke. We switched to fill the second half, then jammed lids on and went to pay. The cashier gave us a bored look as we counted up our loose change.

“Can I ask you like, a relationship question actually?” I said, once we were sitting outside on the curb.

Ymir made a face.

“I guess. As long as it’s not too gross.”

I paused for a moment, not really believing I was about to have this conversation.

“Do you feel like you and Historia are… meant to be?”

Ymir slurped her slurpee, considering the question. It was already a good sign she hadn’t burst out laughing at the phrase ‘meant to be’ leaving my mouth.

“Yeah,” she said suddenly. “I do. Are you asking cause you went out with Armin? Did it really go that well?”

“Shut up,” I said, not able to come up with anything better.

“Oh my god, are you in love with him after one date? That’s so embarrassing. This is the best day of my life.”

“I can’t really explain what’s going on with me right now,” I said, staring into my drink. It was the truth. I wasn’t sure I was in love with Armin after one date. It seemed too soon. Still, _something_ was happening to my heart.

Ymir continued to smirk but dropped the subject. When we were done and dropping our empty cups in the trash, I went in a different direction.

“I know this is the opposite of the stuff we usually talk about,” I said, “but have you been having weird dreams lately?”

“That is a weird question!” said Ymir, “Man, something really is going on with you!”

“So you haven’t.”

“I don’t think so.”

She took a step off the curb, then stopped, eyes glazing over a little.

“I did have one weird dream, right after the reading last week. I dreamt I was inside one of my poems.”

“Which one?”

Ymir smiled.

“Jupiter resplendent on the day of my birth. I was a falling star, new and naked in the land of men and monsters.”

_Armin_

“Mikasa,”

The crowd parted easily around her as she stopped in the middle of the crowded hallway.

“Hey, Eren said your date went well.” She gave me a thumbs up. “Nice work.”

“Thank you,” I said, jogging to catch up and cutting straight to the chase. “I need your help. I want to drink.”

“Drink what? Alcohol?”

“Yes.”

“You want to...become an alcoholic? All of a sudden?”

“No. I’m doing an experiment, and I’d like to introduce some external inhibiting factors.”

“What kind of experiment?”

This was one of the things I liked most about Mikasa. She never called me weird or made a face. She asked questions. She took things in stride. It was especially useful under the circumstances.

“It’s difficult to explain.”

Mikasa shrugged.

“I can get something. As long as you promise to tell me the results of the experiment.”

I nodded.

It was stupid, but my first real step towards figuring this whole thing out had been sleeping pills. Drugs had sort of worked, so why not try another classic mind altering substance? The more I thought about the strange dreams, the weird connection between Jean and I, the more certain I felt that I already had the answer somewhere in my brain, buried deep down. If only I could get out of my own head for a while, maybe I could find it. 

*

I called Jean on Friday night, smiling as I dialed his number sitting at the kitchen table. We’d already spoken a few times since the date. We were good at talking. 

“Hey!”

“Hi,” I said, still smiling, “how was your Spanish presentation?”

“Not great.”

I could almost hear him shrugging over the phone.

“Historia’s in my class and she’s practically fluent. Also my accent is like...I don’t know. Like I’m trying to talk with a live caterpillar in my mouth.”

“Very disturbing imagery.”

“My pride was wounded.”

“Well, if you can’t sacrifice your pride you’ll never gain any Spanish language skills.”

“Inspiring words.”

I grinned wider into the phone. This all felt very familiar, somehow.

_Is this what its like to fall in love?_

“So what’s the situation with your family thing. Are you going to be free this weekend?” I asked.

Jean groaned.

“Probably not. I thought I might have Sunday night off, but now apparently were having one last big family dinner at the crab shack.”

“Monty’s Crab Shack?”

“That’s the one.”

“I see,” I said, “Maybe I’ll swing by.”

“Very funny. I’m free next weekend.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

There was a pause on the phone, and I wondered if Jean was smiling as much as I was.

“Talk later?”

“Talk later.”

Almost the second I hung up, I heard the unmistakable sound of Eren’s car in the driveway. He always pulled in too fast.

It was experiment time. Mom was back on assignment and Dad was working late, so I had invited Mikasa and Eren to come over. Maybe it was weird to have a sleepover with two people who were dating, but I didn’t care. I needed answers.

Eren and Mikasa were standing on my doorstep, shivering a little in the crisp October night. Mikasa held up a bottle of what looked like very cheap whiskey.

“I come bearing gifts,” she said.

“That looks terrible. Good work.”

Set up in my room, I took a deep breath as Mikasa poured an inch of the whiskey into a drinking glass and handed it to me. I had thought that as things in real life got fuzzy, the answers I so craved might come into sharper focus.

But it wasn’t that easy, and that wasn’t what happened.

What happened was that the whiskey burned like swallowing a lit cigarette, and I decided this had been a terrible idea.

What happened was we watched a movie, and Mikasa said the whiskey tasted like gargling hot cactuses, and went to raid the fridge for soda and ice.

What happened was three more movies and three whiskey sodas, before passing out on the floor, all three of us sprawled out on blankets someone had pulled down from the bed.

And I dreamed.

I was standing on a tiled roof, looking at my own trembling reflection in the shiny side of a blade. Only it wasn’t me. My hair was different. The dream changed, and all of a sudden I was looking at Mikasa, a violent mixture of horror and revulsion churning in my stomach.

“I’m sorry,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I’m so sorry.”

I was ashamed to look at her, I didn’t deserve to look at her. Whatever had happened was too much, too heavy for me to carry. I wanted to die.

With a strangled gasp, I sat straight up in my bedroom, catching a moonlit glimpse of the real Mikasa curled up nearby. Feeling sick, I got up and staggered towards the bathroom. I leaned over the toilet, but I couldn’t throw up. My forehead was drenched in sweat, my hands clammy.

Somehow I knew it wasn’t the alcohol.

_It should have been me_, I thought.

There was one moment where I almost understood what I meant. It passed, and the terrible sick feeling started to drain out of me. Still, my legs felt like jelly as I stepped back into my bedroom, and there was a lump in my throat that I couldn’t explain.

Without thinking, I crawled into the space between Eren and Mikasa. In the dark, without saying a word, each of them reached out to hold one of my shirtsleeves.

A sense of calm washed over me, and I fell asleep feeling safe.

_Jean_

Monty’s Crab Shack was about what you’d expect. Family style and kind of gaudy, the staff were more than happy to push together four tables so my extended family could all sit together. It was very standard, as get togethers went.

Nothing very exciting ever happened with us. Once my mom accidentally set my uncle’s cat on fire. Cousin Mike didn’t tell Grandma Mel his wife was pregnant until after the baby was born, and she still gave him shit for it five years later. That was pretty much the extent of our drama.

“Jean, pay attention!”

I was poking at my clam chowder and staring absentmindedly at a big painting of the ocean when my mom snapped at me.

“Don’t take your family for granted!”

“I don’t!” I said, taking a big bite of chowder and regretting it. I should have gotten the crab of titular ‘crab shack’ fame. Titular might have been an SAT word. Those were coming up, Historia said I should take the October test with her, if I wanted the option of applying somewhere with early admission.

Entering another stupor, I was saved by my phone, which had started to buzz in my jeans pocket. I checked it surreptitiously (another SAT word?), and excused myself to the bathroom, locking myself in a stall.

“Hey. You called at both the worst and best time possible. I’m at the Crab Shack and I think some of the clams in the clam chowder are still alive.”

“Hi,” said Armin, “uh remember on Friday, I joked about dropping by the restaurant?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Wait, are you here?”

“I’m not stalking you I swear. But yes, I might be outside. In the parking lot.”

“Don’t move.”

I left the stall. There was a decent sized window by the hand dryers, and to my surprise and delight, it slid open easily. Jamming myself through it, hoping to god some distant cousin wasn’t about to enter and find me escaping out the window, I fell clumsily over the ledge and landed next to the dumpsters.

Jogging around the side of the building, I saw Armin standing at the edge of the parking lot, bathed in that specific yellow orange streetlight. He was wearing a big sweater, and boots I thought were stylish.

“How’d you get here?” was my first question.

“I borrowed my dad’s car. I _can_ drive, I just don’t like to. You thought I walked?”

“Kind of,” I admitted.

I didn’t want to ask why he was here. It might sound like I was upset, when really I was glad, if a little confused. I went with:

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” said Armin. “I’ve just had a weird weekend. A weird few weeks actually, and I wanted to see you. Armin sniffed very loudly, and I saw there were tears in his big glassy eyes.

“Woah! You’re not okay. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I don’t know, I just,” he took a big gulping breath, “I did an experiment thinking it would give me some answers, but instead I’ve got this entirely new set of questions. And now,” another big breath, “I’m not sure I even want to know. And at the same time! I’m not sure I have a choice!”

He wiped a hand across his face, drying some of the tears. Technically I had no idea what he was talking about. But it felt like I did. I held out an arm and he stepped right into me, wrapping his arms around my waist.

The circumstances weren’t great, but it was really nice to hug like that. I felt happy, and relaxed, and some other more alien emotions. Relief. Melancholy. Longing.

“I’m pretty sure of one thing at least,” said Armin, pulling away a little to look at me. “Remember the night we met? You said you knew me. I think you were right. I think I knew you too.”

My heart was suddenly beating very quickly. Maybe this _was_ what falling in love felt like, but there was more to it than that. Whatever was happening between us wasn’t just some mushy plotline from a Hallmark movie. There were other bigger and stranger factors at play, I was sure.

“Does that freak you out?” said Armin.

“No. I’m the one who said it, I always knew, even if I wasn’t sure what it meant at the start.”

“We’re still not sure what it means,” Armin reminded me.

“Right.”

The orange light coming from the streetlamps was giving the scene an otherworldly sort of glow. Armin’s face was inches from mine, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to lean in for a kiss. Our lips were almost touching when someone behind me cleared their throat very loudly.

I turned around, and was mortified to see my mom on the Crab Shack’s front steps. She raised an eyebrow at me, and I knew I was in for it. Kissing a boy in the parking lot would be no problem, but there was definitely a long ‘taking your family for granted and what about your grandmother she flew from Oklahoma’ speech in my near future.

I had meant to say ‘I’ll see you’ as I said goodbye to Armin, but that wasn’t what came out.

“I know you,” I said in a whisper, squeezing Armin’s hand.

“I know you,” he said back.

Back in my seat at the table, I zoned out again as the words resonated inside my chest, an indisputable and inescapable truth. He knew me.


	8. Before We Were Us

_Jean_

Marco found me standing in the hallway in front of one of the computer labs.

“What,” he started, clapping me on the shoulder, “the hell are you doing.”

What I was doing was staring at the placard by the door.

“Lab 104. Have we ever had a class in here?”

“I think I did some research for a history paper I wrote in tenth grade here. Why?”

“It’s the number I think. 104.”

I actually reached out and traced the bumpy digits on the plaque. Then I turned around, and saw Marco looking at me like he was one second away from calling an ambulance.

“Sorry,” I said, “forget it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Actually, Marco? What have your dreams been like lately?”

“My dreams? I don’t dream a lot. I’ll have to think about it.”

If he had to think about it, it didn’t matter.

When I got home that afternoon, I laid down and tried to take a nap. Sleep wouldn’t come, a cruel joke when usually all I wanted to do was pass out after school. Feeling restless, I sat at my desk with some nice drawing paper in front of me. I tried to sketch some buildings, but my heart wasn’t in it. After fifteen frustrating minutes I moved to sit on the floor, using one of my textbooks to support some printer paper.

Without so much pressure, it was like an invisible hand was pushing mine along. First I drew a rose. I felt nothing when I finished it, but it still looked vaguely familiar. Next I drew Ymir. I knew she would kill me if she ever found out, but I couldn’t stop. I drew her frowning slightly, eyes narrowed.

I kept going. I drew Historia with her hair down and Marco smiling. I had never drawn my friends before, and it felt weird. They looked off somehow, but not because I had made a technical mistake. I drew Armin next, making his hair a little longer, his smile soft. I thought it was a pretty good drawing, but I wasn’t done.

I drew Ymir’s friend, the one I thought was beautiful. Mikasa. Her face was hardly fresh in my mind weeks later. Still, I thought I had the shape of it. I changed my mind a few times, and the drawing came out smudged and imperfect. I folded it up and put it in my pocket.

_Armin_

Eren was chewing the inside of his cheek, which meant he didn’t want to answer my question.

“So you used the dream journal,” I repeated, “and now you won’t tell me what you wrote down.”

“It’s not important,” said Eren.

“Of course it’s important! I’m… you know how interested I’ve been in all this. Using the journal was a favor I asked for in the first place!”

I knew I shouldn’t snap. Dreams were a personal thing, and it was wrong of me to demand Eren share his if he didn’t want to. _But still_.

“We’re they bad?” I asked quietly. I remembered what he’d told me ages ago, his dream about hitting Mikasa. “How bad?” I said, when Eren didn’t answer.

He opened his mouth, wavering for a moment, then set his eyebrows in a hard line. He stood from his bed, where we were sitting, and opened a chest of drawers in the corner of his room, digging out the notepad.

I wondered why he had stuffed it in there, as he threw it in my lap. Then, turning the pages gingerly, I understood. Eren avoided my eyes as I looked up at him in horror.

“This… this is really the stuff you’ve been dreaming about?”

Losing limbs, flesh twisting and mutating, blood and broken bones, indescribable pain. Being swallowed alive.

“They’re not all bad,” said Eren softly. “I have the flying dream a lot too.”

I reached out and put my hand on top of his. All this time I’d been chasing my dreams, Eren had been suffering, trying to escape his.

“Whatever research you’re doing,” he continued, “if you can find out why I keep seeing this stuff, I want to know. I think it might help.”

I had a theory, an insane, barely founded theory, but knowing what I did about Eren’s dreams I didn’t think I could say it aloud. I nodded.

Eren’s eyes were very green. As I looked into them, I felt a twinge of that deep inside feeling I’d experienced the day I met Jean. I didn’t just recognize Eren. I wanted to help him, protect him, make the pain stop. Almost like it was my job.

“I’ll do my best.”

_Jean_

I put the pictures of my friends up over my desk, so I could see them from the bed. It was a series unfinished, and not just because the picture I’d done of Mikasa was still folded carefully in my pocket.

I stared at the pencil faces as I got into bed that night. Even in the dark it felt like they were looking at me, trying to tell me something, begging me to understand. My mind was full of them as I drifted off to sleep.

_Armin and I are walking through the woods. It’s early morning, and the air is crisp and cool. There’s a stream somewhere nearby, I can hear it running. I stop to untangle Armin’s dark green cloak from a patch of nettles. _

_“How far are we supposed to scout?” _

_ “Levi said ten kilometers but I think he was being sarcastic. Two is standard.” _

_ “Your hair is getting long,” I say, reaching out to pull at a strand._

_ “I know. I’m thinking of chopping it all off.” _

_ “Really?” _

_ “It gets in my face. And I want a change.” _

_ I remember how classically teenage depressed I’d been when Mikasa cut her hair, what felt like a million years ago. _

_ “Okay,” I say, a little sadly. Something is niggling in my brain. I slow, and eventually stop in the middle of the path Armin is clearing. _

_ “What is it?” he says, turning around._

“Your hair is already short,” _I say. Armin frowns._

_ “I don’t hear anything. Should we hide? Your call.” _

“Your hair is short already. I like the way it looks. You don’t need to cut it because…”

_“No, I hear it too now. Back a bit, there was a rock formation, it’ll give us good cover.” _

_Armin isn’t hearing me. Or, he is, only not the words I think I’m saying. It dawns on me._

“You’re Armin Arlert,”_ I say. A bird is singing somewhere high in a tree. The world is _real_ and beautiful and _I am outside and inside of it all at once.

_ I’m dreaming. _I’m not dreaming.

I remember.

_Armin_

I fell asleep that night with Eren on my mind. I tried not to think about the things he wrote down, the agony he described, but it was impossible. Eren was _feeling_ in his dreams. But why? Why?

_I’m back in the field. The clouds roll gently by, and the grass makes waves with the wind that sweeps between the trees. There’s noise, clanging and shouting, but it’s like I’ve taken off a pair of thick glasses. Everything happening around me is fuzzy. _

_ I feel hopeless. And scared. And at the same time, almost relieved. I’m going to die protecting someone I love, which isn’t so bad. At least I was brave. At least I tried. _

_ There’s a sword in my hand. I’m waving it in the air, slashing at something that’s coming closer. Someone is screaming, and I realize it’s me. My mouth isn’t moving, but I’m screaming all the same. _

_ This is a dream._

_ I realize, and for the first time think to look down at the thing in my arms, the reason I can’t run. Jean Kirschtien’s nose is bloody and his eyes are closed. _I love him apart from myself. My soul is in two places at once.

I realize this is not a dream_, and the thing in the corner of my vision comes into focus for a moment, stopping my heart, turning my blood cold. _

I remember.

_Jean_

I woke up in a cold sweat, my nerves on fire. My phone was ringing, and I launched myself out of bed to answer it, wide awake and full of manic energy.

“Armin?” I whispered loudly into the receiver, without checking the caller ID.

“We need to talk,” I heard him say, voice trembling.

“Where do you live? Don’t move, I’m stealing the car.”

“Wait! My parents are asleep. Where do _you_ live?”

I told him.

“I’ll meet you at the corner of Jessup and Calvin.”

I didn’t even say goodbye, ending the call and pulling a jacket over my pajamas. I crept as quickly as I dared into the kitchen for the keys, then out to the driveway. The pedals were cool on my bare feet as I peeled out and into the street. I’d make up an excuse later, if my parents woke up. Sleep driving, or something.

I could hardly concentrate on the road, my fingers tapping the wheel, my heart going a million miles an hour. There was another car coming straight towards me, and I slammed on the brakes, putting the car in park right there in the middle of the street. I opened the door and ran towards...what?

The past.

The present.

The future.

_Armin_

My slippered feet had hardly hit the road before I was running towards Jean. There was a lump in my throat. I was crying, sprinting down the street. The loud feeling I’d had about him was thunderous now, amplified to full volume, love and grief and disbelief all at once.

_Jean_

We reached each other. Armin ran into me so forcefully I stumbled backwards and nearly fell. I lifted him up, and he kissed me, and it was like being born. I kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his lips again.

“I found you,” I kept pulling back to say. “I found you.”

There was so much I still didn’t understand. But this was certain.

“_I found you_.”

_Armin_

I couldn’t stop crying. Neither of us could or wanted to do more than stand there holding each other in the streetlight, at three am on a cold night in October. When I spoke next, I spoke into Jean’s shoulder, the shirt there soaked from all the tears.

“I think we were both someone else, before we were us,” I whispered. “I think we have to figure it out. More of it.”

“You’re right,” he said, drawing back to put his hands on my shoulders. He moved them up along my neck until he was cupping my face. He smiled.

“Hi, Armin.”

_Jean_

Armin smiled back.

“Hi, Jean.”


	9. Brace Yourself

_Armin_

It had been thirty six hours since I found out Armin Arlert was not an unequivocally singular noun, as I had previously been led to believe. There were too many questions to try and think about all of them at once, so I focused on possibly the most pressing.

“How the fuck am I going to tell Eren.”

Jean blinked at me. We were sitting in my bedroom, spread out on the comforter.

“Do you need to tell him?”

“Yes!”

I explained about his horrific dreams, his plea for information.

“I have to tell him. I have to tell… god! Do I have to tell everyone involved? How are we even supposed to be sure how many others there are? Others like us?”

“That, I can help with,” said Jean. He reached down and pulled a stack of papers out of his backpack. “I drew some of these the other day, the rest yesterday. I think they’re all the people I knew before in the Other place, and now here in this life. Plus one extra.”

He laid out the drawings. Me, Eren, Mikasa, Marco, Ymir, Historia, Bertholdt, Reiner. The extra had the shape of a girl, with vague features and a big ponytail.

“Whoever she is, I think maybe we met in passing or something. I don’t know her personally.”

“I think I might,” I said, recognizing the hair. “Can I take this? To be sure?”

“Go for it.”

Silence fell for a moment as I looked at the drawings, while Jean reached out to hold my hand.

“It’s such a weird feeling,” he said, “every time I look up I’m so glad to see you.”

I squeezed his hand.

“Me too.”

My dad came in then, with a glass of iced tea.

“Oh,” he said, “I didn’t know you had company.”

I saw him pretending not to notice us holding hands as he set the tea down.

“Dad,” I said, swallowing a lot of natural embarrassment, “this is Jean. He’s my new boyfriend.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He shook Jean’s hand good naturedly and left the room, raising his eyebrows at me and flashing me a thumbs up, which made me want to sink into the comforter and die a slow death.

“Am I your boyfriend?” said Jean.

“Uh,” I said, intelligently.

“Not that I don’t want to be, not that I wasn’t already,” he started, blushing, “I just thought, we only just met _technically_, in this life. I feel like I should take you out on a few more dates first.”

“Not necessary. But that’s nice,” I said, smiling in spite of myself before remembering the issues at hand.

“I’m just going to have to grit my teeth and do it. I’ll do Mikasa too, at the same time. And then Sasha I guess, if it is her,” I said, holding up the silhouette drawing.

“And you’re sure they’ll believe you?” said Jean.

“I don’t know about Sasha. We don’t know each other that well, I’m not sure if she’s been going through it like we have. Eren and Mikasa though, I think they might already have some idea.”

“So we each tell our own people?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I have way more people,” Jean said with a little frown, “Ymir’s going to be annoying about it, I can already tell. Also, I’m not sure I’m on life altering news terms with Reiner and Bert.”

“Jean,” I said carefully, “Eren’s been having dreams where his arms get ripped off. He’s been dreaming about being eaten whole, alive. And I have to tell him it _actually happened_.”

Jean nodded.

“That’s fair.” 

_Jean_

I decided to tell Reiner and Bert first. It just kind of happened that way, catching them doing some homework on a table outside during free period. They each raised an eyebrow at me as I sat down and cleared my throat.

“What’s up?” said Reiner.

I decided to test the waters first, and see where it led me.

“This is going to be the weirdest question I’ve ever asked you, but… have you been having strange dreams? About, uh, me? Or Ymir, or Historia? People you know? Possibly wearing leather straps and harnesses?”

It didn’t come out exactly like I hoped it would, and I waited for them to laugh in my face, or call me a freak and run for it. Instead, they exchanged a serious glance.

“In the dream, I’m...big,” said Reiner. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I know I’m big, because there are little people all around me. It’s hard to see them, but I think they might be flying. Does that make sense?”

“Not really,” I said, my heart pounding with victory and reassurance. “But it will.”

*

I decided to go the other way and tell Ymir and Historia separately. Historia took it really well, a lot like Reiner and Bertholdt. It was clear she’d had some idea the dreams she was having weren’t normal.

“And you said there are others? I haven’t said anything about any of this to Ymir. The dreams I have about her. They’re not great.”

“I’ll talk to her,” I said, putting a hand on Historia’s shoulder. “And yeah, there are more of us. Armin and I were thinking we should all meet up once everyone’s on the same page.”

Historia nodded.

“Jean?”

“Mm?”

She gave me a very faint smile.

“You’re a good guy.”

*

It was after school on Wednesday when I grabbed my cellphone to ask Ymir if she wanted to get a slushie with me again. I had a few texts from Marco, and took my time answering those first.

After today, he would be the only one I hadn’t told. I was saving my best friend for last because, like Armin, I wasn’t sure he’d want to know his story. He’d died so horribly, in one of my very first flashbacks. Or, visits, as Armin and I had started to call them. Visits to the Other.

A half hour later I was sitting outside the gas station again with Ymir, who seemed to know I was about to drop something on her.

“What?” she said, looking annoyed. “Quit staring at me you creep!”

“You know how I asked you about your dreams, last time?” I said, ignoring her.

“Yeah, that was also profoundly weird.”

I took it she didn’t have a clue where I could be heading with this. Fuck it, I just had to say it.

“Those dreams. Okay, brace yourself.”

I waited. Ymir’s eyebrows were almost at her hairline.

“Those dreams are visions of a past life. We knew each other back then, a bunch of us at Trost and St. Maria’s. Armin and I are pretty sure we were soldiers together.”

Ymir sat frozen for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“I’m serious!” I said, and the laughter drained from her eyes.

“Jean, you better cut that freaky shit out before I call the cops. Really.”

It was no use after that. She didn’t believe me, and I didn’t entirely blame her. I watched her walk away, shooting me over the shoulder glances as if I might engage in more insane behavior once her back was turned. I would give it a few days before I asked Historia to talk to her. Armin and I were working on a theory:

Once you knew what you were dreaming about, that you weren’t _really_ dreaming, the visits got clearer, lasted longer. They weren’t always thrilling (I’d recently dreamed about eating a potato for lunch in a deserted barracks), but I remembered everything I’d seen for the last few nights.

Thursday night, Friday morning really, I was jolted from visit-less sleep by my cell phone vibrating on the bedside table.

“Hello?” I said groggily.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Ymir was yelling through the phone. “My dreams were all about, like, jogging through fields. And now I’m seeing fucking, giant naked people coming at me! That Eren kid with no fucking arms! What the hell is this?”

Bingo.

That just left Marco.

_Armin_

“They’re not dreams, are they?”

I blinked at Eren, who had just done the hardest part of my little speech for me.

“No. How long have you known? Do you remember?”

Eren shook his head.

“It was just a feeling. Am I going to actually remember things? From then?”

“Jean and I think you’ll start to, now that you really understand them.”

Eren and Mikasa were sitting in my room. Mikasa’s face was impassive, her left hand gripping Eren’s right so hard his arm was going white. I turned to her.

“Have you been seeing things too? Maybe some not great things?”

It felt slightly condescending, like I was speaking to toddlers. Mikasa gave a short nod.

“I didn’t know that,” said Eren.

“I didn’t want to worry you. This other place. You don’t come off so great.”

“That much I know,” he said. “Hey, you’re crushing my hand.”

“Sorry. So what now?” Mikasa asked.

“We find more people like us,” I said, “the people we knew in the Other. A lot of them are Jean’s friends, the Trost kids. We’re pretty sure Sasha from Calculus too.”

“Have you told her yet?” said Mikasa.

“No, I have no idea what to say.”

“I’ll do it. She knows me better.”

I nodded my thanks. There was a strange thrilling feeling in my chest, distinct from the loud sensation that preceded remembering. It all felt so right, pieces of the puzzle starting to come together. No matter what the picture ended up looking like, it was _ours_, it belonged to _us_. It was exciting.

“Call me as soon as you tell her,” I said, “and I’ll let Jean know. Then, if you think it’s a good idea, we’ll all meet face to face.”

Eren squared his shoulders and sighed.

“That’s not going to be weird at all.”


	10. 104

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMAGINE trying to piece together the plot of SNK with only like, every tenth manga page. Imagine the struggle.

_Jean_

Marco was frowning, freshly showered and packed to leave the locker room; we had cornered him after football practice. Ymir and Reiner were leaning against the lockers. Historia and I were sitting next to Marco on the bench while Bertholdt sat cross legged on the floor. 

Marco glanced at Ymir and Historia.

“Are you sure you should be in here?”

“Who’s stopping me?” Ymir asked, eyes wide.

“Marco,” I said, “focus on the issue.”

He frowned even deeper, the freckles on his forehead disappearing as it wrinkled.

“So, you’re telling me, we all shared a past life? One that was like, pretty tough on us.”

The rest of us nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“Dead sure,” I said.

“Why don’t I remember it like you guys do?”

“Well,” I continued, “you might remember _something_, now that you know the truth. But the other thing is…”

It was hard to say. Luckily I had enlisted help for this exact reason. Ymir stepped in.

“You died my dude,” she said, “horrifically. Hugely disturbing. Super young and tragic.”

“Right,” said Marco, blinking and looking nonplussed. “I mean. That sucks.”

If Marco was freaked out, it didn’t show.

“You’re taking this really well,” said Ymir.

“This is going to sound super weird,” said Marco, “but I feel like I already knew, somehow. You’ve all been acting strange. Now I know why it’s like, sure, why not? I’m not upset or anything either. Its like…being told I died in a videogame I didn’t know I was playing.”

“So you’ll come to the meeting?” I said.

We were going to meet Armin and the St. Maria’s kids at Eren Jaeger’s house next. Armin’s was right next door, but Eren had a big den we could all sit in.

“Why not?” Marco repeated with a shrug.

I was just glad he believed us. I hadn’t wanted to leave him out.

*

Eren Jaeger and I were giving each other equally wary looks, standing in his den an hour later. I crossed my arms. He crossed his too.

“There’s something I want to call you,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “but I don’t know what.”

“Same.”

Armin was looking curiously between us as everyone else milled around, introducing themselves or moving chairs into the circle we had started. I fought the inexplicable urge to be annoyed with Eren. It was difficult.

“Hey,” said Ymir, banging her chair down on the carpeted floor. “I’m ready to figure this out. Let’s talk.”

All nine of us found a seat, and my eyes strayed to the only stranger, the girl with the big ponytail. Sasha. She looked nervous, her eyes big and expressive. There was a weird moment of silence as we all stared at each other. This wasn’t exactly your average after school club.

“Okay,” said Armin, more confidently than I felt for sure. “You all know why we’re here. We’ve been having dreams that aren’t dreams. Visions of a world we used to belong to. Jean and I put it together first, and that’s kicked things off. Now that we remember, the visions are getting clearer.”

“Because you’re in love,” said Ymir with a smirk.

Armin blushed.

“Well, yes,” he said, as businesslike as possible, shooting me a glance. I could feel everyone staring, but I wasn’t embarrassed. I was pleased. Maybe proud? And… a little sad.

“In any case,” Armin continued, “I think we have a duty to use the visions, to figure out what happened. I think we owe it to the people we were before to remember. Does everyone else feel that way?”

His voice went a little softer at the end.

There was general nodding and mumbling from the group at large.

“How do we do that?” said Reiner.

“Good question,” said Armin. “A few of us have already started writing down what we see in the visions, right after we wake up. Its the best way to get accurate information about the Other.”

“That’s what we’ve been calling it,” I added.

“The Other,” said Eren quietly, nodding.

“So,” Armin went on, “we keep vision journals, then meet up once a week to talk about what we saw and write the most important parts down. I don’t mind compiling everything, if no one else wants the job.”

“I can do sketches by description too,” I said, half raising my hand. “If you have something you want a visual of. It’ll be good to have written accounts and images.”

More silence for a moment. Ymir almost looked impressed.

“This is batshit,” said Sasha finally, “but yeah, sounds like a plan.”

More nodding from the group at large. I thought probably everyone, myself included, was glad Armin was kind of taking charge. This was big and scary, and there wasn’t exactly a guide book to follow.

“Anyone else on Team Dead?” said Marco suddenly, raising his hand.

“Holy shit,” said Sasha, “you remember dying? That’s messed up.”

“I don’t. Jean saw it. Do you think I will someday?”

“I’m not sure,” said Armin.

Marco went a little pale for the first time.

“Blood pact right now that if you remember someone’s death you have to tell them,” said Historia, looking serious.

Armin raised his eyebrows at me. This was getting dark fast.

“Does anyone have any general theories?” he interrupted. “Jean and I are pretty confident we were soldiers in some sort of war against a species of…”

“Fucked up giant naked people,” Ymir finished for him.

“Right. Those are the basics.”

Mikasa raised her hand.

“I have a theory.”

“Don’t,” said Eren. She ignored him.

“This war we supposedly fought in? I think Eren was at the middle of it.”

Everyone stopped to look at Eren, who fidgeted under eight intense stared. I wanted to scoff at this idea, but there was a sudden weight to the air, a discomfort in my stomach that told me it was true.

“Let’s go from there then,” said Historia, her face set. “Love,” she looked at Armin. “War,” she looked at Reiner. “Monsters,” she looked at Ymir. “and Eren Jaeger.”

*

We spent the rest of the meeting trading scraps of memory, feelings and further theories.

“You,” said Ymir, pointing at Eren, “I keep seeing you with no goddamn arms.”

“I keep seeing me with one arm,” said Eren, frowning. “You see me with no arms at all?”

“Yeah, all stumps,” Ymir nodded.

“What keeps happening to my fucking arms?” 

_Ten minutes later:_

“Okay, so if you’re big,” said Bertholdt, counting inexplicably on his fingers, “I must be really huge. I think I saw you running around on the ground.”

“What did I look like?” said Reiner.

“Kind of like a dinosaur themed transformer,” said Bert.

Sasha spat out her drink.

_Twenty minutes later:_

“What is that thing we did called? Flying trapeze minus the trapeze. Really hard air ballet. Spider man but gas powered.”

“God damnit Jean, stop bringing it up,” said Sasha, “It’s driving me crazy.”

“Okay,” said Eren, rubbing his eyes, “I’ll put in ten dollars to the first person who can remember the real name for Really Hard Air Ballet.” 

There was a rustling as everyone dug in their pockets for spare bills.

Finally, thirty minutes later it was time to leave. The sun had nearly set, and my brain was pounding with all the unanswered questions we were still facing.

“Last thing,” I said, as everyone grabbed their stuff and started exchanging contact information. “Does 104 mean anything? To anyone?”

“The number?” said Eren.

“Obviously,” I deadpanned. “It keeps catching my eye. I think it’s important.”

There was a great shaking of heads, and I shrugged. It would come, eventually. Probably. I grabbed my coat and waited outside, giving people bracing looks as they filed out the front door. Mikasa was obviously staying with Eren, so Armin was last.

“Can I come over?” I said, probably too fast.

He smiled, then did a pretty good imitation of my deadpan from earlier:

“Obviously.”

_Armin_

“I think that went really well.”

I was sitting across from Jean on my bed again. There was a fluttering in my heart that had little to do with the successful meeting we had just left.

“As well as it could go, yeah.”

“Jean?” I started.

“Hm?”

He pushed his hair up out of his eyes, a quirk that belonged to this universe. It was shorter in the Other.

“I’m sorry I said we were in love. I mean, I’m not! That’s how I feel,” I said, steeling my heart, “but I didn’t mean to spring it on you.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” said Jean, his cheeks going slightly red. “It’s always been you. It was always going to be you, I’m sure of it. I just feel kind of cheated.”

“Cheated?”

Jean’s cheeks went slightly redder.

“It feels like a shortcut. I want to take you out on dates, and be lame at prom, and like, learn your favorite color you know? I don’t want to skip any of that dumb stuff just because we know we’ve already done it.”

“You think the Other had prom?”

“You know what I mean.” 

“You’re really sad about this aren’t you?”

“I know it’s dumb,” said Jean.

“No, it’s not. Come here.”

I scooted closer, putting my hands on both sides of his face. I kissed him as gently as possible.

“My favorite color is yellow,” I said.

“Mine’s blue,” said Jean.

We kissed again, less gently, and again, and again, speaking hurriedly between breaths. “I missed you,” I said.

“Spiders freak me out,” said Jean.

Our hands met and intertwined. I felt my heart speed up as he stroked the soft middle of

my palm. Suddenly we were laughing. The setting sun was shining through the window, turning the room yellow. Jean was smiling, and I was warm inside, and nothing could hurt us.

*

I woke up slowly, confused. Was I dreaming, or having a vision? No. There was a strange buzzing sound coming from somewhere to my left. A wasp? A lawnmower? No. My cellphone. I rolled over with a sigh, reaching for it, then blinking twice as I saw it was Mikasa calling, at four thirty in the morning.

“Mikasa?” I mumbled, still half asleep.

“104,” she said, also sounding very tired. “Can you tell Jean? I remembered.”

“104?” I repeated.

“104. It was our training regiment.”


	11. Nothing Can Hurt Us

_Jean_

Three miracles occurred over the next three weeks. Miracle one: I dragged myself to the DMV, and finally took my driving test. I’d know how for almost three years, but it had seemed pointless living so close to school and my friends. Now that my life was spread a little further around town, I figured it was time.

Miracle two: I actually managed to pass my driving test. They gave me a license, and put it on my record and everything. If I ever borrowed the family car in the middle of the night again, it would be legal.

Miracle three: Nine teenagers were diligently keeping vision journals. We were collecting information. The plan was working.

It was Friday evening, our now standard meeting time. We usually met in Eren’s den, big and private, but today Historia had messaged the group chat to ask if we could meet somewhere else, anywhere else.

_I’ve got a bombshell to drop. Could we get pizza or something instead?_

She’d texted.

_WERE GOING TO THE MALL, NO ARGUMENTS._

Ymir added.

So, now I was driving Armin, Eren and Mikasa to Westlake Plaza, which had a noisy enough food court to cover up our routinely bizarre conversations.

“What do you think she remembered?” I said to the car at large, making a careful left turn.

“Maybe she’s a titan,” said Eren, yawning. “I told you I saw a blonde girl coming out of a nape the other night.”

“You also told us you were one hundred percent sure it wasn’t Historia,” I said, once again doing my best not to snap.

I hadn’t liked Eren in the Other, I was sure of that now, but the circumstances had been intense. In this world, there was no reason we shouldn’t be friends, if I could fight the sometimes overwhelming urge to pick a fight for no reason.

“Maybe she saw a death,” said Mikasa.

Armin and I had both noticed Mikasa mentioned deaths a lot more than the rest of us. She never went into details, and I wondered if she’d seen more than she was letting on.

“I don’t mind if it’s me,” said Eren, “things clearly aren’t going great for Other Eren. Death would probably be a nice rest.”

“Don’t say that,” said Mikasa, punching him on the arm.

“What? It’s not like dying in the other means you die in real life. Marco case and point.”

We pulled into the mall parking lot and headed inside, picking up a more normal conversation and looking a lot like we were on a double date, instead of a past life meet up. The others were already crowded around one big table in the food court, trays of pizza and subs stacked almost on top of each other.

“Is Sasha coming?” said Armin, looking around for her.

“She texted me,” said Marco, “said she had an important experiment to conduct and that she’d catch up.”

Finding seats, we all turned to Historia.

“Hit us,” I said, “and remember. Whatever it is, nothing can hurt us now.”

Here was what we knew so far: the monsters in the Other were called titans, horrible naked giants with no junk and very low intelligence. All of us were soldiers living in a country surrounded by walls, trying to stop the titans from, well, eating all of us. And for whatever reason, these things were pilotable. Eren, Ymir, Reiner, Bertholdt, they could turn into these monsters at will, and work as fighting machines. Why, how, all of that was still a mystery, but with every scrap of memory we were getting closer to working it out.

Historia took a deep breath.

“Last night, I saw myself being crowned. As Queen.”

All of us stared at her. Then Ymir said what we were all thinking.

“Well that makes no fucking sense.”

There was a collective sort of groan as Armin flipped to a blank page in his notebook and started scribbling stuff down, asking Historia for details. I tried not to get discouraged at how complicated it all seemed. This was another clue, and as difficult as it might be to work in, it would help in the end.

“I have something to say too,” said Reiner, raising a big hand.

He always looked so serious these days, a far cry from the charismatic guy who always lent a hand, or made an ass joke in one’s time of need.

“I need to say it,” he continued, “before someone else remembers. Bertholdt and I fought with you in this war. But we weren’t on your side.”

Worrying and intriguing as this statement was, it was hard to get much more out of Reiner or Bertholdt.

“I don’t have the details, but I’m sure we were enemies, somehow. I see us fighting,” said Reiner, shooting Eren a glance, “and a man with round glasses.”

“My dad?” said Eren. “He wore round glasses.”

Reiner shook his head very slightly.

“No.”

Parents were another weird and confusing aspect of the Other. Eren had seen his father, and I’d seen my mother. The others hadn’t seen any family members, possibly because so many of them had died in these titan attacks. But our real parents seemed to have no connection to the Other. Why was it that only we remembered, and how many of the people connected to us existed in the Other anyway? Was my cousin Dennis having titan dreams? Should I call him?

Everyone was finishing up their pizza, looking somber, when Sasha appeared out of nowhere, panting and holding a large Tupperware and spoon.

“What happened to you?” said Berthold.

“Bear with me, just bear with me,” said Sasha, “this is like, life or death importance.”

She wrestled the lid off the Tupperware, so we could all see the mashed potatoes inside. Mikasa raised an eyebrow at her.

“You were late because you needed to make potatoes? We’re at a food court.”

“How is this life or death?” said Historia.

“Just shut up!”

Sasha held up the spoon and showed it like it was up for auction. She dipped it deliberately into the mashed potatoes, taking way too much. Then, very slowly, she took a bite. All of us stared as she chewed and swallowed.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Is there anything anyone wants to call me?”

“Have you lost your goddamned mind?” said Ymir, gaping at her.

“No one?” said Sasha, “No one has anything to say about this?”

She waved the spoon around, and was met with blank looks. An elated look came over her face.

“Holy shit. I’m free.”

Then she turned around, and victory spiked her potatoes Tupperware and all into the nearest trash can.

*

We stayed pretty late at the mall, trying to puzzle things out. Armin fell asleep on the way home, and when I turned down the radio I could hear Mikasa and Eren whispering in the backseat. They were talking about normal things, until suddenly they were talking about the Other, with no warning whatsoever. I didn’t want to listen in, still, I couldn’t help but catch pieces of conversation.

“I know we lived there,” said Eren, his voice as soft as I had ever heard it, “but what do you think it was like? Was it all bad, or do we just remember the bad parts better?”

“I think…” started Mikasa. She seemed to struggle with words for a moment. Then she spoke again, her voice hesitant, unsure and a little sad. “I think it was very cruel. And very beautiful.”

_Armin_

A few days after the Westlake food court meeting I woke up tired, as was standard these days, and went to knock on Eren’s door before school. He answered it in his pajamas.

“I’m not going,” he said, squinting sleepily at me.

“Eren, we’ve got a Calculus test. I know you studied.”

“Yeah, I did, and I don’t care. I’m not going.”

I followed him inside, back to his room, where he collapsed on the bed, face buried in his pillow.

“Eren, what’s wrong? You can tell me!”

He said something that came out very muffled by the pillow.

“What? Eren, seriously.”

I flipped him over by the shoulder, and he glared at me.

“A month ago you told me you dreamed about burning to death. Well I saw it. Last night.”

“Oh,” I said. “I died?”

“No,” said Eren. “Armin, I really don’t want to record this. I don’t want to write it down.”

“You have to!” I reached into my bag for paper and pen. “I’ll do it for you, it’s okay! Whatever happened, it can’t hurt us now.”

Eren closed his eyes for a moment.

“It’s the same every time, like I’m watching a horrible movie. I feel like there’s no way it can be real, and at the same time, I know it’s happening.”

“I know,” I said, “but we started this project together. We have to keep going.”

And so we skipped first period, and I wrote while Eren spoke, and I fought to keep my face impassive even as my stomach turned.

“You killed Bertholdt,” said Eren. “And the rest of us just watched, Jean and Mikasa, and Connie, and Sasha. I know we had a deal about deaths, but I don’t think you should tell him. I really don’t.”

I tried to steady my mind, my revulsion. This was our duty. We _had_ to keep going.

“I won’t tell him right away. I’ll think about what I’m going to say.”

Eren frowned again, but when he spoke next it wasn’t to tell me I was wrong.

“You know what else is fucking me up about this?” he said, “I’ve spent enough time in the Other now to realize Mikasa and I aren’t together there. I mean, I love her, but it’s so fucked up, there’s no chance it could ever be normal like it is now. I don’t know what that means.”

He punched his pillow a few times, then spoke again suddenly.

“Do you think there’s a universe, a life where you and I are together?”

I stared wide eyed at him, not sure what to say. It wasn’t like I had _never_ thought about Eren like that, however briefly.

“I’m not hitting on you,” he said, waving a hand, “I’ve just been thinking about how it all works. Why things happen the way they do, why anything happens at all.”

“Eren,” I said. That important feeling was bubbling up inside me again, as I looked at him and said one of the only things I was certain of. “You’re my best friend. I love you.”

I hugged him then, the way I’d wanted to when I first recognized him all those weeks ago, brushing his teeth in the entryway.

He nodded into my shoulder, and I knew it was because he didn’t want to cry.

*

I called Jean as soon as I had a chance that day, and knew he could tell something was wrong.

“It’s just heavy, all of this,” I said after some wheedling. “It’s a lot to deal with.”

“That’s it then,” said Jean, “We’re going on a date next weekend. No Other stuff, no one else, just us on a normal date.”

I smiled, relieved in spite of myself.

“Okay.”


	12. Jean and Armin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very soft M rating ye who enter here.

_Armin_

Jean took me out the next Saturday, as promised. We went to a lake about an hour upstate, surrounded by some nice woods and hiking paths. It was November, so the trees were well into their autumn foliage, reds and yellows and oranges all vying for attention.

“It smells so good out here!” I said, standing on top of an old tree stump. “How did you know about this place?”

“I came here a few years ago with my parents,” said Jean, grinning at me. “There are some informal campsites around too, where you can just drive up and build a fire.”

“Let’s do that one day!”

“Okay.”

It felt wonderful to be outside, kicking up leaves and stopping to look at stray caterpillars, watching Jean shout, then giggle as he tripped over a stray branch. I wondered if he ever giggled in the Other, even if that wasn’t what today was about.

“I wanted to go apple picking, but they were closed this weekend for a private party,” said Jean, shrugging.

“I love apple picking!”

I loved everything, right at that moment. Jean beamed.

“When we do go, I’ll make an apple pie after.”

“You bake? I didn’t know that.”

I hadn’t seen it in the Other. Nowadays, nothing seemed real unless I saw it in the Other first.

“Yeah, I’m a pretty good cook. Apple pie’s my favorite.”

He looked so soft then, in a flannel and a jean jacket, his blond hair sticking straight out the front of his St. Maria’s beanie. I couldn’t help myself, we were alone on the trail after all. I walked forward and put my arms around his neck, pressing our hips together. He pressed a kiss to my cheek, then my lips, and I slipped my tongue into his mouth.

We were making out in the middle of the trail, getting too into it to be wise, but I didn’t care. It felt so good not to think about anything except the way Jean hooked a finger into my belt loop and pulled. This was getting dangerous, and I kind of liked it. I drew one leg up the side of Jean’s, and his hands dropped from my waist, lower and lower. Even through my jeans, I could feel his fingertips moving slowly back up the inside of my leg.

“We have to stop,” I said finally, trying not to laugh, “someone’s going to come by.”

“Sucks,” said Jean, hitting me with another kiss, the kind that was gross unless you were participating.

I had caught Eren and Mikasa gross kissing once, at a party I hadn’t really wanted to go to anyway. The image was burned into my brain, and remembering it now helped lower the mood.

“Come on,” I said, tugging at his hand, “we still have trail to explore.”

“Hey,” said Jean, a little ways further down the path. “Where are you applying to college anyway?”

There was a lot we hadn’t talked about with everything else going on.

“I have this dream,” I said, “to go to school in Europe, at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. I know it’s crazy, but tuition is actually much cheaper over there, and I have a great admissions essay lined up, what with all the traveling, my mom’s work.”

“You’ll definitely get in,” said Jean, smiling.

“You think so?”

“Yes.”

I reached up to poke him in the cheek, a gesture of unspoken thanks.

“Where are you applying?”

Jean shrugged.

“Art schools around the country, hopefully New York.”

“In the city?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” I said, picturing it. “We would be like, the most cosmopolitan couple ever.”

“Hell yes we would.”

Jean grabbed me again, lifting me off the ground and swinging me around. I might have screamed a little. When he stopped, we were both laughing, nose to nose, and I realized there was nothing to say about how far away Geneva was from New York City. That was one of the upsides of remembering, of the Other. I knew more than anything now that we were always going to find each other, that we were always going to be Jean and Armin.

“I love you,” I said. I loved that he giggled, I loved how sweet he looked in hat and a flannel, I loved the way his hair was long in the front, and the way his sharp eyes were a little less sharp in our world.

Unbidden, the Other intruded. I’d loved him there with everything I had, so much it hurt. And it did hurt, what seemed like all the time. I’d made decisions without his wellbeing in mind, terrified it was my call that would get him killed. I’d heard him sobbing in the night, cleaned blood off his face. I’d throw my body between his and certain death, accepting it, almost relieved that it was over, that if he had to die at least I was going too.

“I love you too,” said Jean brightly, putting me back on the ground. “Let’s finish the trail and sit by the lake. There’s a place that sells hot drinks.” 

We talked about school as we walked back to the lake, school and when we were kids. We’d both had good childhoods, loving parents and a good friends and all that followed. For the first time in my life I really appreciated how lucky I was. Life had no obligation to be as good as it had been to me so far, the Other was unequivocal proof of that.

Two apple ciders and some deck chairs around the lake, glistening in the midafternoon sunlight. My drink tasted like life felt, just at that moment, warm and comforting, just a hint of spice. I looked over at Jean licking a drop of cider off his thumb, and realized I hadn’t had enough.

The park had been mostly empty all day, and the car was parked in the very corner of the similarly empty lot. We were putting our backpacks in the back seat of Jean’s family minivan when I stopped suddenly, making up my mind.

“Do these seats fold down?” I asked.

It was technically an innocent question. And, as it turned out, the seats _did_ fold down, once we’d thrown our backpacks in the front. The picnic blanket we’d brought was spread out beneath us, and I was breathing heavily as Jean fumbled with my belt, the button on my jeans.

“Is this your first time?” I asked, running a hand across his chest.

“Yeah,” he breathed, pausing to kiss my neck.

It was mine too. Jean turned to reach for something in the front seat, returning with his wallet and pulling something crinkly and silver out.

“I thought I was completely kidding myself when I put this in here a few months ago,” he said. “Actually, I thought it was probably some kind of jinx. Did it anyway.”

“You’re smarter than you think,” I said, reaching out to pull him close again.

It was still midafternoon, and the autumn light filtering through the windows was gold. Jean sighed heavily, breath hitching a little as I climbed on top of him. His hands moved up my legs, and again unbidden, ignoring everything I wanted in that moment, the Other intruded.

The memory was from a week ago, sharp and visceral. This wasn’t our first time, technically. But sex, like so much else, was tinged darker in the Other. It was desperate, the night before a mission we might not come back from, I love you and I’m sorry, and goodbye all at once. It was hard, but I pushed it out of my mind.

Jean was here, right in front of me, gold dappled and beautiful. And naked. And staring at me.

“Armin?” he said, looking worried. “Are you okay?” 

“Yes,” I said softly, linking our hands, intertwining our fingers. “Yes.”

*

The bliss of the weekend lasted into Monday at school, when Eren stopped dead in the middle of the hallway. He just stood there for a second, eyes going blank, lips moving slightly as if trying to form words.

“OMNI-DIRECTIONAL MOBILITY GEAR,” he shouted a the top of his lungs, causing everyone around us to jump back a foot.

“3DMG,” shouted Mikasa suddenly from his other side.

All three of us screamed.


	13. How Far Does It Take Us, How Far Do We Let It

_Jean_

I was feeling pretty good about myself. After Saturday, I’d only had one or two visits to the Other, both very boring. Cleaning my gear and feeding a horse. Not exactly riveting, but I would take boring over completely horrifying.

Eren remembered what omnidirectional mobility gear was called, which was kind of annoying, but a relief all the same.

And yeah, I’d slept with my boyfriend. And I was really, really jazzed about it, for obvious and less obvious reasons. It felt like a wonderfully normal thing to be excited about, and I considered telling Ymir or something, just so I could be embarrassed when she made fun of me.

She did find out eventually, when Marco accidentally on purpose let it slip while we were all eating lunch in the bleachers. I obviously hadn’t been able to keep it from him.

“I’m really happy for you,” she said, giving me what might have been a nice smile, if Ymir ever smiled nicely at me. But she didn’t. So it was freaky.

“That’s it?” said Reiner, “You’re not, I don’t know, surprised he has a penis? Sorry that Armin tragically went blind?”

It was the kind of joke he would have made a few months ago, but I noticed there were still dark circles under his eyes.

“That’s all I have to say,” said Ymir, as Marco and I exchanged looks. “High five for gay sex.”

She raised a hand, and Bert who was closest high fived her cautiously, clearly bewildered.

Historia caught up to me later between classes.

“Ymir won’t tell me what she remembered, but it’s hitting her hard. She’s hardly talking to me at all right now, actually.”

I could see the hurt in Historia’s eyes, and promised I would try and talk with Ymir. I didn’t get the chance though, not before Friday, when things really kicked off.

We were all sitting in Eren’s den, arguing about a visit several of us seemed to have seen at least one piece of.

“I only see a little of the cabin. I don’t think we stayed there long,” said Mikasa.

“We had to have been there for a few days,” said Sasha, “Connie had enough time to build that stupid hat with the twigs in it.”

“I saw Armin and I scouting in some woods I think were close. There was a river too,” I added.

“I’ve seen the river,” said Armin, nodding, “I think people were looking for us. But then we set up an ambush.”

“That’s right,” said Sasha, “that’s when Connie used his stupid hat. For camouflage.”

All of us suddenly fell silent as this sentence lingered. Something was off about it. Then the ball dropped.

“Holy shit,” said Sasha. “Where…where _is_ Connie?”

“We forgot Connie,” said Reiner, eyes wide. “We remembered Other Connie, but we forget there was…”

“A real one,” I finished.

“We have to find him,” said Sasha, a hint of panic in her voice, “that’s my best friend. He’s… we have to find him!”

“Do we?” said Ymir. She had been quiet most of the meeting.

“Of course we do,” said Sasha, glaring at Ymir, “he’s one of us, he’s important.”

“If he’s important to you,” said Ymir, “then you should be fighting to leave him out of this. What if he’s been ignoring the visions, huh? What if he doesn’t know they’re real? You want to be the one to make sure he remembers every horrible thing he went through? The people he lost? There’s no use pretending its not _awful_ in the Other. Isn’t it worse than you imagined? Am I wrong?”

Silence in the den.

“I mean,” said Ymir, half laughing, “how far does this go anyway? Do we track down every person we remember and make sure they get a slice of the misery? Mikasa, have you called Levi? Told him his life was hell the whole way through? Isn’t he expecting a baby soon?”

“Eren saw Petra die,” said Mikasa. “We’re not sure they were even together then.”

“Fun news!” said Ymir. Historia tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off, looking a little hysterical now.

“And Annie?” she said. Armin had remembered her earlier that week, and after an emergency meeting we’d put together most of her details.

“We’re going to track down a girl who probably actually smiles every so often and explain about all the people she murdered?”

“Enough,” I said, catching the look on Armin’s face. “I think it’s up to Sasha. You guys were the closest. If you need to find Connie, find him.”

Ymir was staring daggers at me, which was stupid. I agreed with her. But it wasn’t my decision.

“Whatever,” she said, standing so quickly her chair turned over. She stormed out, and I was surprised to see Historia didn’t follow.

“I don’t know what to say to her,” she said tremulously. “We must have lost each other, somehow, she must have seen it. I lost her.”

She started to cry, and Reiner and Marco both stood to put their arms around her. More silence. Sasha reached out to hold Mikasa’s hand, and I realized with a shock that Mikasa also seemed to be on the verge of tears.

“Hey, let’s watch a movie,” said Marco wildly. “Eren, where do you keep your DVD’s?”

It was an excellent move by Marco, probably the most removed of all of us from the events of the Other. Eren had a bizarre number of dog movies, so we put on Air Bud, which created one of the weirdest atmospheres I had ever experienced.

Everyone looked nervous, which for some reason seemed to calm me down. The Other me was good in a crisis. Maybe this counted. In any case, I tried to sound encouraging as I walked everyone out after the movie. I didn’t say ‘see you next week’, or ‘good session’. Obviously. I wondered if Ymir would ever want to come to another session again, if there was anything I could say to persuade her.

I was about to leave myself when Eren caught me in the driveway.

“Armin is going to walk Mikasa home. Do you want to go for a drive?”

I nodded, nonplussed. It was a strange request, but no stranger than anything else in our lives right now. As I got in Eren’s car, I realized I wasn’t annoyed with him, had no desire to pick a fight. It was hitting me more and more with every visit that the things Eren experienced in the Other went beyond what the rest of us saw. He lived at the epicenter of the horror story that had been our lives.

We drove mostly in silence, in one big loop around town. I asked how Mikasa was doing.

“Not great,” said Eren, then, “you liked her you know? In the Other. You liked her a lot. You even saved her life once. Thanks for that.”

“Hey, anytime,” I said, my sad attempt at a joke. “And yeah, I kind of remember. She was something else in the Other. Not that she’s not something else here too. You’re lucky.”

“Hard to feel lucky these days,” said Eren.

He pulled off the road suddenly, into a Dairy Queen parking lot.

“Can I tell you something I’m afraid to tell the others?” he said.

I had a feeling this was why he’d suggested a drive in the first place.

“I just feel like I have to say it to someone. I know we didn’t like each other much in the Other, maybe that’s why I’m saying it to you.”

“Sure,” I said.

Eren sighed.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about why this is happening, how none of it really makes sense, this Other life that’s so different from ours. And I realized, there’s no reason to believe things like this go in order, that the universe even has an order. What if the visions aren’t memories? What if they’re warnings?”

His very green eyes shone in the headlights of a passing car.

“What if the Other hasn’t happened yet? What if that’s what’s next.”

My heart sank. It was a horrible, depressing thought, and there was no reason to believe it wasn’t true. This was where Eren was at, where the visits had let him; to believing he was headed for pain and destruction, betrayal.

“Don’t say stuff like that. It’s not true. It isn’t.”

What else could I say?

Eren said nothing. He took the car out of park and drove us back to his house.

*

A horrible feeling settled in my stomach after Friday, even if otherwise life seemed to go back to normal. Or, our new normal anyway. Ymir and Historia had clearly talked, as they were walking around hand in hand again. Everyone else seemed to be dealing with what she’d said in their own way, processing and accepting it. Charting our past lives was a horrible, difficult task, one we just had to get through.

And yet, Ymir was right. Was it also our duty to track down Annie and the others? How far was this thing going to take us? How far would we let it? At our next meeting, which even Ymir attended, Eren casually mentioned he’d seen his mom die, legs broken and ripped in half.

“It wasn’t me was it?” said Reiner.

“I think it was your fault,” said Eren, “but you didn’t actually eat her. It’s okay.”

_It’s okay._

Was it?

Marco spoke next.

“No one freak out okay? I have a theory, but that’s all it is,” he said. “I see less of the Other because I died so quickly right? But I’ve been having more really vivid dreams, stuff that has nothing to do with the Other we’ve been talking about. Do you think it’s possible that there’s more than one Other? String theory, multiple universes and all that?”

“It’s very possible,” said Armin. “Maybe the Other we’re fixated on now was just the most recent.”

“Or the most awful,” said Bert.

Everyone seemed to take this in their stride, but my earlier thoughts were echoing loudly around my head again. _How far does it take us? How far do we let it?_ Were the rest of our lives going to be spent charting and mapping other universes? Should we call NASA? Or CERN, or whatever? What was the point?

“Oh, also,” said Marco, “our quarterback is throwing a house party this weekend. You’re all invited. I think we all need a drink.”


	14. Let's Do It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reiner just loves punch in all my fics I don't know I can't read.

_Armin_

I was going to the party against my better judgment. I wasn’t completely sure drinking made the visits clearer, they were already pretty clear, and Marco was right. We all really needed a drink.

“Are you excited?”

I was over at Eren’s waiting for him and Mikasa to be ready.

“I guess.”

“You know this is probably the coolest party we’ve ever been to.”

“That’s true.”

Eren’s smile was halfhearted, but at least it was there.

We piled into the car at ten pm and drove to the address Marco had given us to find the party was already in full swing. Which was good. The only people we knew inside, we knew through a past life, which would make for an awkward introduction.

_ Yes, I know Bertholdt. How you ask? He kicked a big giant whole in a wall, killed my grandfather by proxy, and then shared a barrack with me during our military time!_

“Hey,” said Jean, finding me in the entranceway, “you look good.”

“You too. Drink?” I asked, cutting right to the chase.

“This way.”

Jean led us to the drinks table, where Reiner poured us all massive glasses of punch.

“To forgetting for a night,” he said, raising his own glass.

I bit my lip. I wasn’t _sure_ inebriation made visits worse. Why say it when I wasn’t sure?

“Ha,” said Eren, “let’s hope.”

We drained our glasses, and came back for seconds. The punch was sickly sweet in a way that made me sure it was dangerous. When we finished our second glasses, I noticed the people around us were staring.

“If only they knew,” whispered Jean.

I had a terrible vision, not of our past, but of our future then. Was this what the Other was going to do to us? Were we facing years of drinking to forget? It seemed like something I needed to worry about, but not long after, the alcohol hit me.

It was a good party. The music was too loud to talk over, and someone had replaced a bunch of the light bulbs with colored ones. The whole house had a psychedelic tilt to it. Jean really did look very good, in a tight white t-shirt and jeans, and we ended up kissing in a stairwell for a good fifteen minutes, as strangers passed through, too drunk to care. I must have been wrong all along about alcohol and the Other. I felt really good for the first time since Eren had remembered about omnidirectional mobility gear.

Things had changed since the beginning, when piecing things together was exciting. The manic charge I’d felt when I thought about the Other had shifted into something that felt a lot less like responsibility, and a lot more like a burden. Maybe it always had been, maybe I’d been too caught up in feeling important to care. But not tonight. Tonight we were okay. Tonight the Other couldn’t get us.

_Jean_

“Let’s do it,” I said, as Ymir poured me a shot. I didn’t know it yet, but it was my last of the night.

“To not being dead,” she said, clinking the tiny glasses and putting hers away.

I winced at the horribly cheap whiskey and drew a hand over my mouth. As the burn faded, what she’d just said hit me.

“Hey. Hey!”

I grabbed her shoulder, a little unsteady on my feet.

“Ymir. Did you die? Did you see it?”

She poured herself another shot, which was basically an answer anyway.

“I thought maybe we would never see our own deaths, since Marco still hasn’t seen his. Dying fucking sucks Jean. I had stuff to do, and instead! I fucking died.”

I was stunned. I wanted to do something for her, hold her or something, but I knew she would only punch me in the face. Then she had disappeared back into the crowd.

“Ymir?”

I stumbled up the stairs, and tried to force my way into a bathroom before I realized what it was. A little further down the hall I tried a door and ended up in a bedroom. It took me another stunned second to realize I’d walked in on Eren and Mikasa hooking up.

“Get out!” they both shouted at once, and I backed up quickly, wishing I could remove and heavy wash my eyeballs.

I was making my way back down the hall when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Mikasa, looking totally unabashed in her jeans and a bra.

“What?” I asked, blushing in spite of myself.

“Jean,” she said, “I need to tell you. I need to warn you.”

I nodded. Mikasa was obviously drunk, but her eyes seemed to clear as the stepped forwards and pushed me into the now vacant bathroom I had passed earlier.

“What is it?” I repeated.

She looked at me hard.

“I see the furthest.”

“Okay. What does that mean?”

“I see the furthest, into the Other. I always have. The things we talk about in 104 meetings, most of it is barely the beginning. I’ve seen where it goes.”

Her hair was so long, silky black and almost to her waist. It made me weirdly nostalgic.

“You always were the best of us,” I said, unsure how else to respond.

“I was,” she said nodding curtly. “So believe me when I say things don’t get any better. They only get more complicated.” 

She left without another word, shutting the door with a snap. I got up and wrenched it open, not to try and follow her, but to find Armin. I’d lost him when I’d went to see Ymir in the kitchen.

“Armin?” I shouted, too loud. “Armin?”

I finally found him holding an untouched glass of punch in the basement.

“They you are,” I said, relieved. “I just walked in on Eren and Mikasa. It was gross.”

“I walked in on someone too,” he said.

“Ymir and Historia? Is that were she went?”

“Reiner and Bert,” said Armin.

“NO. I had no idea.”

He nodded. For the first time I noticed his face was somber, so different to earlier.

“I think one of them was crying though,” he continued, “I left really quickly.”

“Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?”

It was a stupid question. Armin put his still full glass down and looked up at me, eyes wide.

“You don’t feel it?” he asked. “How clear it’s gotten?”

The moment he said it, it hit me. I looked Armin in the eyes, and all of a sudden it was like I had stepped out of the party and into a bubble, a strange, undulating in between space. Armin was wearing a white collared t-shirt. No, an orange one, stained with party punch. His hair was long, curling a little at the ends. I felt the weight of a soldier heavy on my shoulders, and suddenly I was angry, at my station, at Eren, at titans, and my mother, and _everything_.

Horror had a grip on my insides. I lost track of things again, stumbling through some stranger’s house, catching glimpses of my friends, my fellow soldiers, wresting with the terrible weight threatening to crush me.

I saw Reiner holding Marco by the front of the shirt, shaking him.

“I’m sorry,” he kept saying. “I’m sorry!”

Tears were running down Marco’s face.

I saw Sasha hugging her knees, sitting in a corner of the dining room and shaking her head.

“I was so scared.”

She said it like a confession.

“I was so scared, and I messed up! I was so scared!”

I saw Historia sitting blank faced on a couch, staring off into the distance. She looked regal, and unattached, as if she’d forgotten how to feel anything at all.

It was hitting us all, hard.

It was too much. It was all too much.

*

I blinked. I was sitting in a garden. The back garden of the house where I’d recently lost my mind. I had no idea how I’d gotten out here or what time it was, but it was clear I was sobering up. The awful otherness that had gripped me was fading, almost gone now, leaving behind a pounding headache, and a tightness in my heart.

As I sat there in the dark, I thought about a lot of things. My friends, and myself, and this beautiful beautiful world we lived in, with dumb parties, and drivers licenses, and first dates, and high school, and art school, and oceans, and my house and my mom and my dad and my grandma who flew all the way from Oklahoma.

Someone was coming out the back door, into the garden.

I locked eyes with Armin, and scrambled to my feet. Then I was holding him, squeezing him so tight it must have hurt.

“Are you okay?” he said, squeezing back just as tight. “I locked myself in the bathroom and I must have passed out. Marco’s helping clean up, he got everyone else in a taxi. They all went home. How’d you get out here?”

“Armin,” I said, stepping back to look at him properly. “We can’t live like this. After tonight, I’m sure. We can’t do this anymore.”

He just looked at me. I knew it had been important to him, I knew he, maybe more than any of us had been driven to figure out the dreams, when they were just dreams. He had always been smart like that, inquisitive, captured by things that were unknown.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I know now that I meant what I said at the start! I want to go on dates with you and take you to prom and hang out with your weird friends, and I want to do it without this cloud of death and destruction hanging over us. Forget the Other! I’m glad we loved each other there, god, I’m so glad. But I want to fall in love with you in _this_ universe, on _my_ terms.”

It was impossible to tell what Armin was thinking from the look on his face, so I said the last thing I had to say, the thing that had been confirmed by what I’d felt during the party. Those kids from the Other had lived through hell. They were _so_ broken.

“I think we got it wrong Armin,” I said. “I don’t think we owe it to them to remember. I think we owe it to them to forget.”

Armin sniffed. There were tears in his eyes, and for a moment I thought he was going to yell at me. He nodded instead.

“You’re right,” he said. “I think you’re right. And even if they would want us to remember, to put it together,” he looked up defiantly. “I don’t care. I pick us over them. So let’s do it.”

I stepped forward, so relieved, so grateful, and touched my forehead to his. He sighed.

“Let’s forget.”


	15. The Soft Place

_Armin_

Jean called everyone on Sunday morning, as soon as we thought they might all be up. After a few repeat calls to Ymir and Bertholdt, everyone was clued in.

I had gotten up early and gone to Jean’s, so I heard him do the actual calling, explaining the plan. To neither of our surprise, he met no resistance. I even heard Ymir say ‘_took you long enough’ _through the phone.

“Ready?” said Jean, checking his watch. It was getting on late afternoon. The sun would be down in a few hours.

“I’m ready.”

Jean picked up the camping supplies, the blankets, the food, while I grabbed my bag, fit to bursting with notebooks, scribbled on napkins, nice drawing paper, everything we had used to document the Other for over a month now. It seemed like much longer.

On our way out, we picked up Eren and Mikasa, and Sasha, who lived close. Reiner drove Bertholdt, and Ymir drove Marco and Historia. Jammed in the car, the hour long ride felt exceptionally short. Soon we were pulling up to the lake Jean and I had visited not long ago, parking alongside the others, in one of the informal campgrounds Jean had mentioned before.

We said brief hello’s, and got to work building the fire.

Reiner was gathering dry leaves and the rest of us were piling sticks when Sasha spoke.

“I have one question before we do this, just one last group think.”

Everyone groaned.

“Fine,” said Ymir, “ONE. I mean it. One last question.”

“Why did we remember the Other in the first place?” said Sasha. “What kicked it off?”

“You idiot,” said Ymir, “you’re only thinking about that now? That’s the _million dollar question_. There is no answer.”

I stopped arranging the fire for a moment, thoughtful.

“There was a storm the night of my first visit,” I said. “I remember, the road was all wet when we drove to school the next morning.”

“That’s hilarious,” said Marco. “Sure, a storm. A big bolt of lightning shocked us all into a past life. Good enough for me.”

Everyone snickered. They all looked so much happier than I’d seen them in the last month, smiling as they added to the unlit fire, stopping to smell the dry leaves, the crisp air, throwing the dry leaves at each other instead of on the fire.

The night before, Jean asked if it could possibly be that easy, if we could choose to forget. I had a theory about that too, and the theory was: yes. The visits got stronger once we acknowledged them. If we chose to forget them, they would fade. I knew it in my heart.

The others must have known it too, or they would look worried. Eren pushed Jean into a pile of leaves. Mikasa laughed, and Ymir smiled as the put one arm around Historia, the other around Marco.

We were going to be okay.

_Jean_

It took us a while to light the fire, once the sun had finally gone down. There was a lot of groaning and passing around of matches, but eventually the innermost layer of kindling started to smoke. A half hour later, the flames were three feet high.

Armin passed around the papers at random, the time lines, the drawings, the written accounts. I ended up with the picture I’d drawn of Mikasa at the start, and I leaned over to hand it to her.

“Very creepy Jean,” said Eren, nodding at it. But Mikasa smiled.

“I like it,” she said.

An unknowable happiness came over me for a moment, and I smiled back at her.

“I’m glad.”

Then, without much ceremony, we chucked everything into the fire. There was silence for a second as the mound of Other miscellanea blackened and curled. Then Sasha said ‘wheph’, and we all laughed. 

Marco went to get the marshmallows, and Eren passed out skewers, and we took seats around the well fed fire to make s’mores. When s’mores were over, it was technically time to go home, but it seemed no one wanted to leave. I didn’t think too hard about why, just added more logs to the fire and went back to hold Armin’s hand, where he was asking Ymir about the new poetry she was writing.

“Nothing metaphorical for a while,” she said, “just to be safe.”

“Are you still going to write about me?” said Historia.

Ymir smiled.

“Always.”

It got late, and very cold, and we retreated into our cars. Sasha went to sit in the back of Reiner’s, which meant it was just Armin and I in the front seat of mine, Eren and Mikasa in the back. Armin drifted off pretty fast, as usual, and I watched through the front window as the fire sent sparks like new stars into the clear night sky. In the quiet, I let my mind wander:

_This is the soft place. This is the life that comes easy. This is where we meet when we’re older, when we don’t need to hold each other through childhoods that did their best to rip us apart. This is the place where Armin is asleep with his head on my lap, and loving him is so easy. I know I’m good at it, and not just because I’ve been doing it for lifetimes. This is the place where Mikasa is smiling in her sleep in the backseat, and she’ll be smiling when she wakes up, quiet yes, but with her soul all in one piece. This is the place where if I crane my neck, I can see Eren next to her, eyes still open but drifting shut, and I love him, he’s annoying but I love him and I know it. _

_I’m overwhelmed all of a sudden. I realize I haven’t cried once, not when the dreams came, not when we finally knew, not when we really started putting it together. Now the tears come, quiet and quick._

_This is the soft place, the place we remember. I have a million guesses why. Maybe it's a curse. Maybe when life is this good, you have to live it carrying all the pain and time and horrors of the lives that are yours whether you want them or not. Maybe it’s only that in this gentle life, we’ve finally had long enough to catch our breath, to notice things we pushed aside before. Maybe this is the end of the line. Maybe when you’re finally out of time, you get to remember where you’ve been and what you’ve done, and the soft place is your reward. Maybe none of it makes any sense at all. _

I must have fallen asleep then. When I woke up it was morning, and the fire was just a pile of ash in a ring on the ground. Someone must have put it out, eventually. I stretched and yawned. It was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very Small Author's Note: I wrote the italicized portion maybe three years ago on a whim. That was my starting point, and it's still my favorite piece, which is why I couldn't bear to change the tense. I hope it still reads.


	16. To You, Somewhere Along The Space Time Continuum

_Jean_

Our lives happened next. I’d almost forgotten about our lives. I took college entrance exams, and Armin started the application process for Geneva, and Christmas songs started playing on the radio.

In the thick of the Other, I’d gotten a lot of four am calls, remembered scraps that couldn’t wait to be discussed, terminology, whispered misgivings or regrets. Not anymore. The last one came two weeks after we burned the stuff.

“Horse face,” Eren mumbled sleepily into the phone. “Ok, I’m done now, I’m at peace.”

I grinned. _Goodnight suicidal bastard. _

It was almost Christmas, and I was shopping for a gift for Marco when I saw Sasha in the mall talking to a boy about her height, kind of scrawny, with hair much longer than I remembered it. I thought it looked cute like that and wondered how they’d met in the end, but didn’t ask. I ducked behind the pretzel stand and let them be.

The Other had faded from all of our lives, as Armin had been sure it would. Certain things still pulled faintly at my heartstrings, but it was easy to let them go. No more visits, no more memories. Armin and I were watching TV once when a politician came on screen, blonde and broad shouldered, with a familiar commanding face. We exchanged glances, but said nothing. I changed our group chat name from 104 to Fire Starters Anonymous. I even got to meet Levi’s baby after it was born. Mikasa had to make some questionable excuses for why Armin and I were there, and it was _super weird_, but nice.

*

It was New Year’s Day, and I was over at Armin’s again. We were lying on the bed, just tangled up enough to be comfortable.

“You know what I think?”

“Hmm?” said Armin, clearly almost asleep, his breath soft on my collarbone.

“I think we’ll both live to one hundred. Maybe even older. I think one day, we’ll be lying in bed like this, all covered in wrinkles and with no hair, smelling like old people, and we’ll realize neither of us have ever lived this long.”

“How will we celebrate?” asked Armin.

“I don’t know. But there’s a long time to decide.”

I thought about it then, getting old. I thought about who would die first, how it would feel to waste away, how I would stand it when I couldn’t even get to my feet, and how ridiculous it was, after everything, to be scared of living too long.

I buried my face in Armin’s soft blond hair, and wondered briefly if it would be so bad to die as young men fighting for a cause, tragic but incredibly brave, in love against all odds, immortal in our deeds.

The thought was fleeting. It went as quickly as it came, a novelty I could consider and throw away as easily as forgetting a bad dream. This was the soft place, after all.

I told Armin I loved him, and closed my eyes, to wait for the rest of forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Much love.


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